The history of the Stevenson’s in Leicestershire
Introduction
I decided to write this history not for self-glory or self-importance, but because ordinary people like us leave no history behind us.
Famous people have recorded histories and glowing obituaries, but we live lives of quiet obscurity and leave only faded photographs behind that become meaningless when memories fade and generations pass on.
While carrying out the research for this book I realised I was the first family member in direct line from 1798 to own the house in which I live!
Research into people who own no property, leave no wills, and live a life of poverty is never easy, even photographs were a luxury few families could afford in the early days.
But I hope the evidence gleaned from census records, birth, death and marriage records, and verbal sources help to paint a picture of the early lives of my ancestors.
I am aware that this is a rather subjective approach, being my own memories and thoughts with help from other family members.
I began this project after my Dad died, when I realised that he was the last of his generation, and he took with him all of his memories.
In 2003 I was able to meet and talk to Madge Smith the daughter of Charles Redvers Stevenson, her son Dennis and her Brother Charles William “Bill” Stevenson, who shared many more memories of life in Shepshed.
Two years later I met David Stevenson and his wife Elaine who first contacted me in early 2005.
David’s Grandfather, Thomas, was the brother of my Great Grandfather William (Billy the sweep) and he added much to the family tree.
I have carefully checked all the early dates and authenticity of the photographs before including them. The project was helped considerably in May 2006.
I had been fascinated for some years by a number of photographs of the family taken at the home of Frances and Joseph Rouse, Kings Road; Shepshed in the 1960’s one of which is shown below, and often wondered about all their descendants who were members of my family I had never met.
So with the considerable help from Rosalyn Pollard nee Rouse, granddaughter of Lois Stevenson, and David Stevenson I arranged a gathering of the Stevenson “clan” in Shepshed.
It was a great success and eventually over 100 people came during the day, and through them I was able to add to my store of memories and photographs.
Even The Shepshed Echo sent a reporter and the newspaper took up the story.
I hope these words and pictures will be somehow preserved and passed on to future generations of my family, because I have been left a precious legacy by some very special people.
“The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.” Dodie Smith
CHAPTER ONE: The Stevenson family in Kegworth
In 1798 George III was on the throne, and England was at war with France led by Napoleon.
On August 1st Horatio Nelson defeated the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile.
Nelson who had already lost an arm was wounded in the head during the battle.
Closer to home The United Irish led an uprising against the British dominated Kingdom of Ireland which lasted several months, and was known locally as the1798 rebellion and resulted in the 1801 Act of Union, which brought Ireland tighter still under British control.
That same year in the parish church of Kegworth, a small village on the Leicestershire/Derbyshire border, Thomas Stevenson married Elizabeth Haywood on the 19th February.
The marriage certificate reveals that the couple were illiterate as they signed their names with a mark.
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The marriage certificate of Thomas and Elizabeth Stevenson, note that neither was able to sign their own name
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This event is the earliest authenticated record of the Stevenson family I have so far discovered.
There is a baptism record of Thomas Stevenson (May 12th 1774), which confirmed his parents as Joseph and Deborah, but no other details, and so it would be dangerous to assume this is the same man.
I have been unable to trace any other record of the birth or death of either of them, or indeed the details of the witnesses Richard Roper and Phebey Livers. But is the start of a story that continues to the present day.
Thomas and Elizabeth had three children.
Thomas was born in Kegworth in 1798, and baptised in the parish church that year.
William was also born in Kegworth in 1802. Sadly he died in 1806
Richard was the last child of the family and he was born in 1805.
Elizabeth died in 1805, aged only 30, the same year as her son Richard.
Three years later in 1808 Thomas married Sarah Hardy.
Their children being;
William Stevenson (1808)
Mary Stevenson (1810)
Mary married William Berrington in Kegworth on 23.06.1829
Henry Stevenson (1812)
Richard Stevenson (1814)
Benjamin Stevenson (1820).
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CHAPTER TWO: From Sheepshed to Shepshed
Lying a few miles west of Loughborough in North Leicestershire, Shepshed is referred to in the Doomsday Book of 1089 as Scepeshefde Regis, meaning ‘hill where sheep graze’.
The addition of the suffix 'Regis' signifies that there was once a royal lodge in the area.
In early parish records the village is referred to as ‘Sheepshed’ or “Sheepshead” derived from the village being heavily involved in the wool industry. Local people claim that the village has had more changes of name and spelling over the centuries than any other in the country. The town finally adopted the name Shepshed in 1888.
Once considered the largest village in England, Shepshed finally gained town status in 1993.
In the 19th Century the main employment in the village was framework knitting.
By 1850 stockinger’s shops proliferated in the village with more than half the households so employed. So much so that the 1851 census the first page carried the note:
“F.W.K. is an abbreviation of Frame Work Knitter”
Thus saving the recorder much time and writing as the words appear with monotonous frequency in the census records.
Our early ancestors were all framework knitters but the money they received was very poor.
William Lee, a Nottinghamshire clergyman, invented the first knitting machine or stocking frame in 1589.
The following page from “Framework Knitting” by Marilyn Palmer gives an idea of the poverty suffered by the workers:
As poor as a stockinger' was a common and regrettably apt saying during the nineteenth century.
William Cobbett's picture of the knitter quitting his frame at eleven o'clock at night after seventeen or eighteen hours of work, eating his solitary potato and crawling in to sleep among his children who had been sent supperless to bed is probably not too gross an exaggeration of the truth.
Working the stocking frame required considerable physical effort, both from the hands and arms in moving the carriage and from the feet and legs in working the treadles. Good sight was also needed as the machine required frequent adjustment. It could only produce a flat piece of material, not a tube of fabric, but by increasing or decreasing the number of loops made it was possible to widen or narrow the fabric to follow, for example, the shape of the leg. This was then taken off the frame and seamed up, forming a fully fashioned stocking.
Women usually undertook the seaming, while because of the strenuous exertion required working the frame was usually the man's job.
Children or women wound the thread from hanks on to bobbins. Framework, knitting, as it came to be called, was therefore an occupation in which all the family participated and one which could be carried out at home since only muscle power was needed.
Working a hand frame was a strenuous occupation.
The knitter used both feet to operate the treadles and both arms to move the heavy iron carriage on its wooden frame. To the left of the frame is a floor vice and to the right a bobbin winder, adapted from an old spinning wheel: these were used to transfer yarn from hanks to bobbins for use on the frame.
In 1819 the eldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth, also called Thomas, was living in Sheepshed and working as a framework knitter, he married a local girl called Sarah Dutton.
Sarah was brought up in the Baptist faith and so their five children were all registered in the Baptist church.
John 1820
Ann 1826
William 1832
Benjamin 1834
A fifth child was shown but the name is undecipherable possibly Jesse
Ann had a very eventful life. She already had two children when in 1845 she married a much older man, James Mabe who was born in Tewkesbury Gloucestershire in 1809.
They set up home in Chapel Street, Sheepshed and the Parish Church Records show that on the 30th April 1848 James and Ann took 4 children to the parish church to be baptised:
Sarah Mabe Stevenson - born in 1838 and listed as base-born.
Jesse Mabe Stevenson - born in 1844 and also listed as base-born.
Maria Mabe - born in 1847
Mary Ann Mabe - born 1848.
The final two were named as the children of both parents.
James and Ann lived in various addresses in Shepshed including Chapel Street and Bridge Street and all together Ann had 13 children, details of most of whom have been lost in the mist of time, but one daughter Elizabeth needs to be mentioned here as she married William the son of Anne’s step brother John, but more of her later.
William is probably the most famous of all the 19th century Stevenson’s.
In 1841 he and his brother Benjamin were living in Leicester at the home of John Stevenson who is possibly their uncle and a master sweep.
The census for that year shows them employed as chimney sweep apprentices, even though their ages are shown as only 8 and 10 respectively.
The historian Neil Storey has researched the history of chimney sweeping and to show how poor the family must have been and how hard a life they had, the following except from his research shows the truth behind the words “chimney sweep apprentice”.
In the 18th century, as the middle class became wealthier, more houses were built and therefore more chimneys erected, the trade of chimney sweeping became more lucrative and soot also sold at a premium to farmers as a fertilizer for cereal crops. As the trade in fertilizer took off so too did the sweeps often allied trade of night soil collector: they emptied the privies of those whom paid for the privilege, and this human effluent was also sold as manure and to tanners.
Soon a hierarchy of sweeps was established. At the top of their craft was the ‘Master Sweeps’; they had premises and a number of employees perhaps one or two men and four or five climbing boys, all of whom would have served or were serving an apprenticeship. The climbing boys were often children of families who ‘lived on the parish’, were orphans or ‘sold to the trade’ for £3 or £4 by local overseers. There were also ‘indentured’ apprentices with the family paying the master sweep a fee to feed, clothe and instruct the child in the trade.
Some climbing boys were as young as four or five years old.
Climbing or ‘chummy’ (a corruption of chimney) boys were key to the work of the chimney sweeps; armed with a birch brush slight, young boys could climb up the passage of the chimney and the narrow flues and brush down the soot and armed with a mattock (a metal scraper), remove the hard tar deposited by wood or log smoke.
The boys knew the dangers and there were no safety clothes, equipment or regulations to protect them; bruising, cuts and grazes and ultimately sores were common, particularly among the new boys as they learned and hardened up to their regular climbing work.
Often the boy would practice at the master’s premises; another older more experienced boy would be sent up close behind to advise the apprentice lad and make sure he did not come tumbling back down(thus such boys probably gave rise and origin to the word ‘chums’)”
Fortunately William escaped from all this and returned to Sheepshed as a framework knitter and in 1855 he married Hannah Pollard a local girl born in Sheepshed in 1834.
The 1861 census reveals that they were living at No.7 Part of ring fence called Cotton Mill House, Shepshed, William is a framework knitter and Hannah is a seamstress.
But ten years later the 1871 census reveals a dramatic change in their circumstances.
Though lacking any early education and unable to sign his name when he married, he abandoned framework knitting to gain a professional qualification.
Nicknamed 'Professor' Stevenson, he is now running a chemist's shop in Market Street.
By 1881 they had moved to a different shop, this time at 10 Pinfold Street.
The 1891 census reveals yet another change of address, they are now situated in Cheapside, and his advertisement appears in Freeman's Almanac.
(The Almanac, produced annually by printer and postmaster Henry Freeman, was a popular source of local and national news and information.)
Freeman’s Almanac
In May 1898 Hannah died and is buried in the Shepshed cemetery (section 45, plot 29.)
William then married Phoebe Lindsey on 3rd October 1900 who was 44 at the time
The ceremony took place in the old Leicester Road chapel in Loughborough, no longer in use as a place of worship but once the 'cathedral' of local Wesleyan Methodism with a gallery and imposing organ and choir stalls.
William died on September 24th 1917 and Freeman's Almanac carried the following announcement:
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On Sept.24th the death occurred of Mr William Stevenson, one of the oldest and most respected tradesmen in the town, at the age of 85 years. He was one of the Conservative candidates at the first Urban Council election in December 1894, but failed to secure a seat.
This was the only time he sought Council honours.
Benjamin, like is older brother William also escaped the rigours of chimney sweeping and returned to Sheepshed. He then married Mary Ann Quemby sometime in the 1860’s and they had two children William and Sarah Ann.
They lived in Navigation Road, Shepshed and like the rest of the family were framework knitters.
Mary Ann died in 1897 and Benjamin died in 1919.
But for the sake of continuity we must return to John, who was born in 1820.
In a family of people all of whom seemed to live to a good age, John was the exception because sadly he died in his mid-twenties.
But in his short life he married Ann Bullers a girl of his own age who worked as a lace runner, and they set up home in Moorfield Place, Sheepshed where John was the inevitable framework knitter and they had three children;
Thomas - born in 1842
Mary - born in 1844
William - born in 1845.
Thomas Stevenson, who was born in 1842 in Sheepshed, was my great-great-grandfather.
At the time the young Victoria was on the throne, she was crowned only five years earlier in 1837.
The London Illustrated News was first published in this year, and it was a time of much poverty and unemployment in the country.
Nine years later in 1851 we find Thomas in a very dire situation.
He is now living in 30 Bedford Street, in the St. Margaret district of Leicester as an apprentice chimney sweep to John Stevenson, the same man who 10 years earlier had Thomas’s Uncles William and Benjamin as apprentices.
The trade of chimney sweep was thereafter to loom large in the Stevenson family.
His father John has died and his mother Ann is living in Forest Street, Sheepshed with her new husband John Freer.
She has taken with her Thomas’s sister Mary and younger brother William.
Gertie Wortley confirmed that as a child Thomas grew up with a chimney sweeping family who did not feed him adequately. When an inspector called, the mother would sing to the baby at some point which was a coded message meaning that the boys were to eat the food set before them but leave the meat.
When the boys were sweeping chimneys, the householder would sometimes offer them a piece of cake. After eating it, they would return crying saying that someone had taken it from them, and hopefully be rewarded with another slice!
This seems to fit in with the Leicester scenario.
Moving on ten years, the 1861 census reveals that Thomas is now living back in Queen Street, Sheepshed with his mother and his step-father John Freer, but there is no mention on the census of his brother William.
The census also reveals that his sister Mary has her first son, also called Thomas but is not yet married.
This arrangement did not last long, because soon Thomas and William were to move to Lincolnshire in search of work.
Two doors away lived the family of George and Sarah Lakin, who were all framework knitters and two of their children, Eliza and Henry are soon to marry Thomas and Mary.
Three years later, on the 18th. May 1864 Thomas married Eliza Lakin, who was then 19.
They were married at the Parish Church in Shepshed, and his occupation listed on his marriage certificate was “Chimney Sweeper”.
He lists his residence as Gainsborough, the town in Lincolnshire where he and his brother were working as sweeps.
The witnesses to the marriage of Thomas and Eliza were Henry Lakin, Eliza’s elder brother and Mary Lakin nee Stevenson, Thomas’s sister who married Henry.
All four of them were illiterate at the time of their wedding, as they all signed the certificate, which is in the County Records Office in Leicester, with crosses.
The officiating clergyman was The Vicar of Sheepshed the Revd. Charles L. Phillips, a relative of the Squire of Garendon.
By 1871 Thomas had returned to Sheepshed and he and Eliza were living a 71 Forest Street. The census of that year indicates that they had three children:
William (my great grandfather) John Henry, and Louisa.
The family later moved to 13 Brook Street where five more children were born;
Charles, Mary Ann, Agnes, Thomas and Joseph.
Thomas’s brother William was living just 3 doors away and both were continuing their trade as chimney sweep.
By 1888 the town is re named Shepshed and Thomas and Eliza are living in Chapel Street.
It would appear that Eliza had a big influence on Thomas’s life.
Gertie Wortley, his granddaughter, told me he was very uneducated when they married as evidenced by the crosses on the marriage certificate, but she encouraged him to learn to read and write, and he became an avid reader of books which he borrowed from the co-op library. In his later life he was described as “clever” by other members of the family.
Eliza was also the first Catholic to join the Stevenson family (see the Stevenson family and religion) and William too was converted to Catholicism later in his life.
The only thing she was unable to alter was his liking for a drink, saying that if it were not for the amount of beer he drank, they could have been a wealthy family.
Eliza suffered from cataracts and went blind later in her life.
They celebrated their diamond wedding in 1924 and a photograph of the family gathering on that occasion is shown below.
Thomas died in 1925 and Eliza in 1933.
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CHAPTER THREE: Billy the Sweep
1865 was a historical year for many reasons.
Over in America Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April and in May the American Civil war ended
In Britain July Lewis Carroll published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the first speed limit was introduced by the Locomotive Act — 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.
It was also the year that William Stevenson my great-grandfather was born at 71 Forest Street, Shepshed on 23rd October 1865.
By a strange quirk of fate in the same year The Christian Mission, later renamed the Salvation Army, was founded in Whitechapel, London by William and Catherine Booth. The Salvation Army was to have repercussions later in the life of his family.
As a boy he and his brothers all helped their father Thomas in the family chimney sweeping business.
As each boy grew up he was sent up the large chimneys, but he grew too big, the next one in line took over the job.
And so it was natural that when William was old enough he became a chimney sweep in his own right.
The next big event in his life happened on the 25th January 1888, when he married a local girl, 20 year old Elizabeth Ann Iliffe at the Parish Church, Shepshed.
She had two sisters and three brothers and all the Iliffe family were Frame Work Knitters.
The young William and Elizabeth set up home in Brook Street, Shepshed, the same street as William’s father, where Thomas my grandfather was born on the 20th July that same year.
And William continued his trade as a chimney sweep.
Over the years they moved several times, firstly to 16 The Lant in about 1900, before moving to nearby Walker's Yard.
This was in Church Side very close to the parish church, and it appears that this was previously the site of several cottages grouped around a yard no doubt with a pump for drawing water.
Later they moved to the Coach Yard in Chapel Street, where they lived in several terrace houses knocked together, the end one was very tumbled down and was known as the “soot house” which was obviously where he kept the soot to sell.
During these years the family grew and eventually 13 children were born.
All of whom appear on the photograph taken in the 1960's which began my quest.
The full list of the children is as follows with their dates of birth and death:
Thomas (Dick) 1888 - 1962
Lois 1890 - 1967
Amos 1892 - 1978
Sarah Catherine (Sally) 1894 - 1986
Harry 1896 - 1985
Francis William 1897 - 1898
George 1898 - 1967
Charles Redvers (Charlie) 1900 - 1970
Eliza Annie 1902 - 1989
Emma Matilda 1904 - 1969
Annie 1905 - 1993
Emily Frances 1907 - 1998
Margaret (Edna) 1909 - 1972
William was known in the village as “Billy the sweep” and used to travel around the area plying his trade on a pony and trap; he charged 6d to sweep a chimney but one shilling if they kept the soot as he used to sell the soot to local gardeners.
He also followed his father in his liking for a drink and on many occasions he used to get so drunk that he fell out of the pub and onto his trap lying among the brushes and the soot, and the “Teddy” horse brought him home.
Teddy knew every pub in Shepshed and would stop outside of every one until told to move on.
On the morning the sweep was due, housewives would cover all their furniture and belongings with sheets, and spend a cold morning in the house as no fires could be lit before the chimneys were swept however Billy’s reputation was well-known in the area, and in the neighbouring village of Belton the women would look out of their windows on the day he had arranged to come to sweep their chimneys, and if they saw “Teddy” and the trap outside of The George in the market square they would light their fire knowing for sure that they would not be getting a visit from the sweep that day!
In fact Madge his granddaughter believes his death was brought about by pneumonia caused by lying out in the trap one night in heavy rain as he was too drunk to go into the house, and as he was a widower by then there was no one to bring him in.
I later learned that although most of the sons have fond memories of their father, seeing him as a bit of a rascal, and a renown Shepshed “character”, the girls were quite frightened of him, hated his drinking and some ran away from home.
The rift between William and his daughters was probably exacerbated when Eliza was married to John Henry “Harry” Bannister in a Salvation Army ceremony by a Salvation Army captain.
William refused to give her away as he did not agree with her joining the Army and so Jack Monk her brother in Law, being married to her sister Lois, gave her away in his place.
One is left to speculate whether his objections were purely religious or the fact the Salvation Army was a Temperance organisation!
The three youngest daughters Annie, Emily Frances and Margaret later moved in to live with Jack and Lois, but this may have been after the death of their mother Elizabeth Ann who died on 11th September 1923 aged 53.
William died on 26th. March 1930 aged 65. Their grave is in the Shepshed cemetery.
And so sadly I never knew my Great-Grandparents as they both died before I was born.
I also regret that I never asked my Granddad about his parents when I had the chance.
Their son Charles Redvers and his wife Doris made their home in 16 The Lant possibly after the family moved to Walker’s Yard. I have faint memories as a child being taken to 16 The Lant in Shepshed to visit Dad’s Uncle Charlie, the house I remember was rather large with a pebbledash exterior.
In 2003 I met Bill and Madge, two of Charles Redvers’ children.
Madge told me that his unusual middle name was given to him in recognition of an army general much admired at the time, General Rt. Hon. Sir Redvers Buller VC GCB
Buller led the relief of Ladysmith in the Boer War in February 1900.
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CHAPTER FOUR: Netherfield
Thomas Stevenson my grandfather was born in Brook Street, Shepshed on the 20th July 1888 and known by everyone as “Dick”. After helping his father as a chimney sweep, he became a coal miner.
On the 19th of April 1908 Thomas was living at 58 Church Road, Stockingford, Nuneaton.
I know this because on that day he married Annie Warren at the Chilvers Coton Primitive Methodist Church, Nuneaton, and that was his address on the marriage certificate; they then began their married life together at 83 Whittleford Road, Nuneaton.
How these two people met each other has long been a mystery to me, how I wish I had asked them when I had the chance, but through information gleaned from census records and their marriage certificate it is possible to create a plausible answer.
The Nuneaton society reports that in 1900:
“Stanley Bros Ltd. Nuneaton New Colliery opened for coal raising, this replaced the Nuneaton Old Colliery sunk about 1730 and closed June 1900”
And so it is quite possible that the young Thomas came to Nuneaton to work in the newly opened mine there and one of his fellow miners was John James Warren who lived with his wife Eleanor at 86 Tomkinson Road Stockingford.
John James was the brother of Annie and one of the witnesses to the marriage.
Annie Warren was born on the 6th of August 1883 to John and Catherine Warren in Hathern, Leicestershire a small village close to Shepshed, but the family moved to Belper in Derbyshire sometime around 1890.
She began work in the local cotton mills at 11 years old for 2.6d a week.
On the 1911 census form her father John wrote that they had had 17 children born live, but 9 had died.
From the comfort of our lives in the 21st century, it is impossible to imagine how hard life must have been for children of working class families at that time.
Born into large families, with only the father working, and the mother almost constantly pregnant or nursing, they were sent out to work at very young ages to supplement the family income. Contemporary reports of child labour of the time reveal that the children were little more than slaves, working long hours in hard and difficult conditions for a pittance.
The marriage certificate of Thomas and Annie holds two other mysteries:
Thomas was 19 at the time (although on the marriage certificate his age is shown as 22) and Annie’s address is given as 21 Edward Street, Chilvers Coton, the same street as the church.
Annie was an accomplished organist and so I wonder if she was in some way attached to the church at that time?
Three years after their marriage the 1911 census shows that Thomas and Annie were in Belper and living at 29 St John’s Road. Thomas describes his occupation as “Coal miner” but I have no record as to which pit he is working in.
It also reveals that their first child, Gertrude Annie, my Auntie Gert, was born in Hathern. Just one day before the census was taken, the first of April, their second child John William, Uncle Bill, was born in Belper.
Later in 1913 my dad Thomas Richard was born in Belper too.
In 2010 I visited St. John’s Road, but sadly number 29 had been demolished.
The next event in their lives was a move to 48 Arthur Street, Netherfield as Granddad began working at the Gedling colliery.
In all he worked as a miner for 41 years, 35 of them spent at Gedling.
But here is a another mystery: The newspaper report of their Golden Wedding in 1958 states they had lived at 48 Arthur Street, Netherfield for 48 years which means they moved there in 1910.
But that is obviously wrong firstly because of the 1911 census and secondly because on his death certificate it records that my dad was born in Belper in 1913.
Perhaps it is a mystery that will never be solved.
When they moved to Netherfield there were 40 houses for rent in Arthur Street with rents ranging from 3s. 9d. to 4s. 3d. per week.
This was because large numbers of the railwaymen from nearby Colwick were transferred to Peterborough leaving many houses vacant. Netherfield was entirely the creation of the railway age built on the flat, swampy ground alongside the Trent over the hill away from Nottingham.
It was the nearest convenient place for the construction of engine sheds and shunting yards, and a series of speculative builders had met the needs of the workers by providing a village which still lacks plan or centre.
They lived the rest of their lives together at No. 48 where two other children were born. Olive, who was born in 1914 and died when she was only three, and Stanley born in 1920.
During the war women were encouraged to “do their bit” for the war effort as and Annie answered the call and worked in Luxfer’s in Colwick helping in the manufacture of shell cases.
The factory today makes gas cylinders.
After the war in 1946 she began work as a jogger at Stafford and Co. Ltd. Printers of Netherfield. A jogger removes printed sheets from automatic stacking mechanism of web press, flexes stack of sheets between hands and taps stack into alignment, using hands and fingers, or places stack on vibrating jogging table and guides stack into precise alignment, and places stack on pallet or skid for removal.
In 1949 Granddad left the colliery and joined her there working as a Night watchman. They were still working there in 1958 both in their seventies.
The company was famous for printing posters for the railway companies many of which are now very collectable, they also produced the photographs that were used to promote films, which were displayed in frames outside the cinemas. She often brought home some of the photographs for me to collect.
During the war Stafford’s produced a number of posters that were used to remind people to be frugal with resources and save energy needed for the war effort.
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Granddad used to go into The Railway Hotel, known by everyone as Jacky Bell’s for a pint or two before starting his night shift. I understand it was called Jacky Bell’s after an earlier landlord, and it was the only public house in the village. As I write this the pub has now been re-named Jacky Bell’s which is a case of people power I suppose.
When he was at work he had his dog ‘Laddie’ with him, and he always told me that Laddie was more important than he was because he used to wake him to go round the factory every hour.
I remember one night he left his sandwiches behind so I was sent to deliver them.
When I arrived he was about to start on one of his rounds and so I went with him and observed the procedure.
He carried with him a "night watchman’s" clock, and he had a designated route or path that he was required to make during a specified time, at night and on weekends, when there was no one around. This was to insure that all territory, property, machinery, material, or equipment, was observed in a timely and scheduled manner.
All along the route, there was a station or post and a small metal box was attached to each station, inside this box was a key, affixed to the box with a chain, so that it could not be removed. Each station was numbered.
With the night watchman's clock hanging from his shoulder by a leather strap, granddad visited each station, and opened the key box, removed the key, inserted it into a keyhole in the clock, and turned the key. By turning the key, he made an impression on a tape that was inside the clock. This tape was synchronized with the date and time of the clock, making it a record of the time and place of his "watching". He replaced the key in the box and continued on his route, stopping at each station, each with a different number, and performing the same tasks.
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A night watchman’s recording clock of the time
Annie was a very jovial and happy lady, who loved life; she enjoyed playing cards and went to the Vale Club in Colwick once a week to a whist drive. She also played the organ and her favourite tune was “The Old Rugged Cross” which she played every time we visited them.
“Dick’s” main hobby was fishing. He was a good ‘Trentman’ and a member of the Netherfield Railway Fishing Club.
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They celebrated their Golden Wedding in the upstairs room at Jacky Bell’s on Saturday April 19th. 1958
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On the 28th of August 1962 Dick was sitting on the front doorstep enjoying the sunshine waiting for Grandma to call him in for his dinner, when he suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack, he was 74.
(Many of my memories of Grandma and Granddad are recalled in the next chapter)
After the funeral Aunt Gert insisted that Grandma went to live with them, but she was never happy there, because Gert wouldn’t let her do anything for herself, and she had always liked to keep busy.
Her happiest times were when she came to the Manchester Unity club to stay with us and was able to help out there.
She eventually went into the Nottingham City Hospital suffering from senile dementia and died in about 1967.
Thomas Richard Stevenson, my Dad was born in Belper on November 16th 1913
As a young man Grandma insisted he took organ lessons, as she herself played the organ, but he told me he hated it, because he could hear all his friends playing in the street, while he had to stay in and practice. I never knew why it was just Dad who was given lessons, as none of the other children could play. But the lessons stood him in good stead because he enjoyed playing an organ or a piano all his life. He knew all the hymns in Sankey’s hymnbook by heart, and was always asked to play the piano at parties and family gatherings.
Dad followed his father to the pit at Gedling, but he never liked working there, he said how much he hated the journey down to the coalface in the lift cage. Dad was a pony driver and his job was to lead a pit pony that pulled the tubs of coal from the pit face to the lift on rails.
He also had to care for and feed the pony.
One day his pony caught his foot in the rail and Dad had to kill it by driving a spike into its brain. This incident gave him one more reason for hating mining.
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Pit Pony, Brinsley Colliery, Eastwood beginning of 20th Century
Another story dad often told about this time gives us a picture of the time, and the shrewdness of his dad.
One evening Dad and his friend Ron Flowers went into “Jacky Bells” and although they were under the legal age they ordered a half of beer each and stood there feeling very grown up. Then Dad saw his father in the other bar and feared the worst. However, he did not cause a scene; he simply ordered a pint with the instructions to the barmaid “That young man in the tap room will pay for it.” Dad and Ron scraped together the price of the pint and quickly fled. The incident was never mentioned in the home, but Dad said that he made sure he was never caught drinking by his father again.
(Dad’s friend Ron Flowers later married Mam’s friend Daisy Brough, and so Daisy Brough became Daisy Flowers.)
As a young man Dad used to go with his friends to Burton Joyce where he used to eye up the girls near to the playing fields and it was there he met Martha Consterdine a young girl who lived on Southcliffe Road, Carlton, and worked at the local mill called Bourne’s, all the young ladies who worked there were known as “Bourne’s Angels”.
Martha Consterdine “Mam” was born in Carlton on 23rd July 1914 to Samuel and Martha Ann Consterdine.
Samuel was a cabinet finisher.
Martha Ann’s maiden name was Bysill.
Mam had two brothers, Bill and Sam and 3 sisters, Harriett, Evelyn and Alice.
On Saturday evenings Bourne’s held dances for their workers called ‘tuppenny hops’ so dad started to go there to meet Martha, although he confessed later he never liked dancing. They began courting and they used to meet outside the factory when she left work.
Dad’s sister Gert worked in the same department as Martha, and so arranged that she should come for tea. Mam’s recollection of that first visit to the house was that she was very frightened and could hardly speak throughout the visit.
This is quite understandable when I think of the two families. The Stevenson’s were a lively voluble family where everyone had an opinion on every subject and were not afraid to express it. I always remember lots of fun and laughter when the family gathered.
The Consterdine’s by contrast were a quiet, God-fearing family where children were “seen and not heard” and the tick of the grandfather clock sounded very loud.
Mam’s family later moved to Green Hill, Carlton. I have only a very faint memory of that Grandma, and never met Granddad. When I went to visit the family as a child the house was occupied by Mam’s mother and Mam’s sister’s Harriett and Alice, the youngest of the family.
Also living there was Nelly Consterdine nee Sully, who was Mam’s brother Bill’s wife.
She was physically and mentally disabled. Next-door lived Mam’s other sister Evelyn and her husband Frank Handley. They brought up the two children of Bill and Nelly; Barrie and Barbara. The other brother, Sam was married to Joyce, whose sister Ida was married to Dad’s brother Stan. Much later in life Alice married Tom, who by coincidence once ‘courted’ Mam before she met Dad.
Tom died in 1999 and Alice died in 2000. After Nelly died, Bill married a German lady whose name I can’t remember.
Dad at last managed to get away from Gedling Colliery and moved to the Beeston Boiler Company, Beeston on October 4th. 1935.
The company opened a factory in 1897 on the lower-lying area, south of the village of Beeston and adjacent to the railway.
Theirs was the conclusion of an interesting transition from horticulture to heavy engineering - making heating boilers for commercial, horticultural and residential use - that had evolved from a partnership of the Pearson family, horticulturists in the adjacent village of Chilwell, with Robert Foster, a Beeston joiner.
The firm of Foster & Pearson had made horticultural buildings since 1845, started making heating units for them and, seeing the wider potential, a major company was created.
Mam and Dad were married on the 1st of June 1936 at St. Paul’s the parish church of Carlton.
Dad’s best man was his brother Bill and Mam’s bridesmaid was her friend Annie Allwood.
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They could not afford a honeymoon so began their lives at 80 Godfrey Street, Netherfield, and there on the 24th of May 1938 I was born.
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