This blog is designed to record the findings of our family history, mainly for the benefit of the family, and to document the dead ends, the breakthroughs and the journey.
I’ll post the family stories as I’ve written them to now, and I’ll be grateful to anyone who can add further information or pictures, or point out errors.
Particular thanks to my sister Julia and my cousin Mandy who between them have done much more of the work than I have.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Elizabeth Webb 1814-1899


I have already written about the mysterious Mills family after 1851, but what of Elizabeth Webb, great great grandmother no 2, who married William Mills in 1832 in Wolverhampton, according to IGI.
Details are of course sketchy at this stage, but the 1851 and 1861 censuses give Elizabeth’s birth year as 1814 and her place of birth as Sedgley. According to IGI she was christened on 6th November 1814, and her parents were John Webb and Hannah Unitt who were married on 15th September 1811 at St Peter Or, Wolverhampton. IGI does not mention the church in which Elizabeth was christened but the parish church of Sedgley was All Saints.

We do not know what Elizabeth did, if anything for a living, as she did not work after her marriage to  William Mills who was a master whitesmith, as so many of our ancestors on this side are.
In 1841 this family is living at Sheepcot Wall Sedgley .

The couple were in Sedgley in 1851, at Dudley Road Sedgley with 6 children

William Mills
1811
Fire Iron Maker
employing 3 men and three boys
Born Sedgley
Elizabeth Mills
1814
Wife
Born Sedgley
Mary Ann Mills
1834
Daughter - Tailoress
Born Sedgley
Julia Mills
1836
Daughter
Born Sedgley
Elizabeth Mills
1841
Daughter
Born Sedgley
Miram Mills
1844
Daughter
Born Sedgley
Thirza Mills
1845
Daughter
Born Sedgley
Phoebe Ann Mills
1849
Daughter
Born Sedgley

 By 1861 they have two more children

Mils
Hannah
Daughter
 
1854
 
Sedgley
Mils
Sarah
Daughter
Unmarried
1857
 
Sedgley

 However Elizabeth is described as a laundress and William is not there. So, is William dead, as implied by Elizabeth being “Head”, or is he away, as implied by her being “married”? I’m guessing the former, in which case he died some time after 1857 and before 1861. I have been unable to find out for sure.
The family is missing from the 1871 and 1881 census (they may be leaving in a different area), but Elizabeth turns up in the 1891 census as a widow living with Sarah Emily and Joseph Hamilton in Roebuck Street. She died in 1899 at the age of 85.

 

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Who was James Morris the plater's father


This from Geoffrey Morris
I'm beginning to think that our ancestor was not George Morris but Thomas. The only likely entry I've found (so far) in the 1841 Birmingham census is for a family in Pritchit (now Pritchett) Street, close to New John Street, where James Morris, father of James and Alfred (Alfred my Grandad), was born in September 1839. Ancestry lists them as Tomes and Rosina Morris, both aged 25, but someone has corrected this transcription to James, which clearly right (see the attached). Also there was their presumed son Jos or Jas, aged one, which (if he wasn't Joseph but James) could well be my great-grandfather. Rosina is a reasonable version of Rosanna(h), whose name gets spelt in several ways. Also here is the presumed father/grandfather, Thomas, aged 65, so born in about 1796. He was a brewer, and his son (presumably his son) a labourer. Where Thomas's wife, if any, was (dead? visiting?) I have no idea. I've tried to find her through the IGI, but there are at least half a dozen candidates. Pending further and better particulars, as the lawyers say, I'm assuming Thomas is our ancestor. Which means removing a large number of relatives from my tree!

 He has a point. James the plater and Rosehannah don’t show in the 1841 census separately, but the 1841 census isn’t very reliable. However I found George Morris as James the Plater’s father through IGI which is equally unreliable.

So what makes me think that it is George rather than Thomas.
·         George was a gunmaker, as was Rosehannah’s father, so they may have known each other.

·         There is no record of Thomas having a son called James in the IGI

·         In 1839 on James the chainmaker’s birth certificate the family were living in New John Street. Unfortunately we don’t know where they were living in 1849 when James the Plater died , as he died in hospital in Bath Row.

·         Thomas is given as a brewer in the 1841 census and James as a labourer but we know that james was a skilled man, a silver plater.

·         Even if James and Rosehannah were at the same address as Thomas in 1841, he could be some other relation, with whom they were staying temporarily .

The jury is still out and it will need some digging in the parish records of St George’s and St Philip’s, where James the son of George was christened according to IGI.

Friday 21 September 2012

Whitehouse Family Story


Origins

Whitehouse is one of those names that is very familiar and common, but a hundred years ago was only common in the Black Country. There are some instances in Wales and the North West, but it doesn’t show at all in the south and east of England.  Pretty obviously it originally meant someone who lived in a white house. The Guild of One Name Studies has one person interested in the name,. In fact they have more in common with our Morrises, being platers and gun barrel makers. but his family come from Birmingham and I can’t see a relevance to ours. http://www.users.waitrose.com/~whitehousefhc/

The Whitehouses join our story when Sarah Whitehouse married Samuel Hamlet in 1845.

Sarah Whitehouse1823- 1876

According to IGI Sarah was christened on 2nd March 1823 at St Martins in Tipton. Her parents were William Whitehouse and Deborah (nee Perkins).
The 1841 census shows her living with her parents and siblings in New Road Tipton, and on 10th August 1845 she married Samuel Hamlet (or Hamblet as they were spelling it that week) at the parish Church in Dudley. At that stage she was living in New Hall street, as was Samuel , although her parents were still at New Road.

At the time of the 1851 census Samuel and Sarah are living at Tividale in Rowley Regis with 2 sons Samuel William (1847) and Joseph, our great grandfather (1850). They appear to have moved to Rowley Regis between 1847 when Samuel Jnr was born in Dudley, and 1850 when Joseph was born in Rowley Regis.
By 1861 they have moved again to Park Lane Tipton, and here there is a mystery. They have  daughter Mercey, and there son Samuel is only 10. I can’t find a record of the Samuel Jnr dying and another son  being called Samuel. It should also be noted that Joseph, who we know was born in 1850 is listed as being born in 1857 in the transcript of this census, giving his age as 4, while the original looks more like 14 to me. Still not right, but closer.

As we know Samuel Snr died in a pit accident in 1862 when Sarah was 39. In the 1871 census she is shown as a widow living with Joseph, now 22 and Mercy who is 14 at Sedgley Road East in Tipton.
The newspaper reports of Samuel’s death say that he had 6 children. I have found five so far.
Joseph 1849
Samuel 1851
John 1852-1859
Isaac 1855-1857
Mercy 1857


John aged 8 was drowned in the pit shaft at the same colliery as his father in 1859, three years before the death of his father. The death certificate quotes from the coroner that "how he got in the said water no evidence to shew". Isaac died aged 2 of inflammatory dropsy. Samuel Jnr has disappeared. I can’t find him in the censuses or a record of his death.
Joseph married Sarah Emily Mills in 1873 and Mercy (with another spelling variation – Humphlett) married Henry Brakewell in1876. Sarah died in 1876, aged 53 of liver disease. .She was still living at Sedgley  Road and her death was registered by her sister Anne  who is married to Joseph Brierwood.

William Whitehouse 1791-1874 and Deborah Perkins 1795-1877

I can’t find a definitive birth record for William. According to IGI there were two William Whitehouses christened at St Mary’s Handsworth in the relevant time period  Wiiliam 1 was christened on 26th June 1791 and his parents were Daniel and Elizabeth. William 2 was christened on 21st September 1792 and his parents were Isaac and Eleanor. Often you can make a sensible guess by the use of a name in the next generation, but William and Deborah had sons called Daniel and Isaac and a daughter called Sarah. Until I can get to the parish records and check William and Deborah’s marriage records I won’t know which is the right record, and the trail ends here for now.
According to the various censuses both William and Deborah were born in West Bromwich and William was boatman.

William and Deborah married at St Mary’s Handsworth on 9th September 1816 according to IGI.
They spent their married life at New Road Tipton. Looking at the map, New Road is very close to the Walsall Canal and quite near to the junctions of the Walsall Canal with the Tame Valley Canal and the Birmingham Canal, and Dudley Port. Tipton – Venice of the Midlands.

William and Deborah had 6 children

William                 1821
Sarah                     1826
Daniel                   1826
Anne                     1830
Isaac                      1833
Thomas                                1839

In the 1851 census William and his sons Daniel and Isaac are boatmen. Their youngest son Thomas is shown as being born in Church Aston Shropshire, perhaps on a boat trip. They have a lodger , Joseph Brierwood (who later married their daughter Anne) and their grandson unnamed Hamlet aged for is also there. This is most likely Samuel Jnr, although he also shows on his parents census form.
By 1861 William, now 69, has stopped being a boatman and is a labourer. His sons, Daniel 35,, Isaac, 28 and Thomas 21 are all unmarried, living at home and working as boatmen.

In 1871 only Isaac is still at home, although there is also another grandson, Thomas,  and by 1881 William and Deborah are both dead and Isaac and Thomas are lodging with a family called Partridge in Mill Street, just across the A461 from New Road.
William died in 1874 and Deborah in 1877

Saturday 8 September 2012

A double tragedy

As we know Samuel Hamlet was killed in an accident with winding gear at Tipton Green Colliery. I have been researching his children and I have discovered that his son John aged 8 was drowned in the pit shaft at the same colliery in 1859, three years before the death of his father. The death certificate quotes from the coroner that  "how he got in the said water  no evidence to shew".

Monday 27 August 2012

Why did Joseph Hamlet change his name

During the course of his life between 1850 and 1933, Joseph Hamlet changed his name  several times

1845 Samuel’s marriage certificate    Hamblet
1850 Joseph’s birth certificate                 Hamlet
1851 Census                                           Hamlett
1861 Census                                           Amphlett
1862 Samuel’s death certificate              Hamlet
1862 Birmingham Daily Post                  Amblett
1871 Census                                          Hamlet
1873 Joseph’s marriage certificate        Hamlinton
1881 Census                                          Hamilton
1887 Walter’s birth certificate                Hambilton
1891 Census                                         Hamblington
1901 Census                                         Hamlinton
1911 Walter’s marriage certificate         Hamilton
1911 Census                                         Hamilton
1933 Joseph's death certificate             Hamilton
 
According to my father, my grandfather Walter, Joseph's son, was always very insistent that despite the fact that some people used variations, the family name was Hamilton. This wasn't true, and indeed Walter's own birth certificate Hambilton. Indeed Joseph's own marriage certificate to Sarah Emily Mills has Hamilton crossed out and replaced by Hamlinton. We had assumed that the variations were the result of sloppy enumerators, but there is one further twist. Joseph's  birth certificate gives his name as Joseph; his marriage certificate gives his name as Joseph, Walter's birth certificate gives his name as Joseph, and his death certificate gives his name as Joseph. My father who is named after him always refers to him as "Old Joe". But on Walter's marriage certificate his name is given as Thomas Joseph. Why? Is there some dark secret that made Joseph change his name when he moved from Tipton to West Bromwich?
 
I think that we who were born Hamiltons are unlikely to want to change back to Hamlet, but I did waste a lot of time in my youth supporting Hamilton Academicals unnecessarily.
 

Saturday 25 August 2012

The great greats

I'm about to start filling the gaps in the stories of the great great grandparents. There are of course 16 of them.  Some of them , like Samuel Hamlet, James Timmins, William Jasper and James Morris the chainmaker, we know something about. We even have two photographs of James Morris, but the others, especially the women need a deeper look. The sixteen are:

Paternal
Samuel Hamlet and Sarah Whitehouse
William Mills and Elizabeth Webb
James Timmins and Ann Worrall
Thomas Cotterill and Hannah Tompkinson
Maternal

Benjamin Billingham and Harriet Easthope
William Jasper and Mirah Edwards
James Morris and Sarah Little
William Perry and Elizabeth Partridge

Tuesday 21 August 2012

The Jasper Family Story


The Jasper Name

In 1881 the heaviest concentration of the name Jasper was in mid Cornwall ( and indeed Julia knows some Jaspers in Launceston). There was a mid concentration in the Black Country and a scattering in East Wales, Suffolk and Sussex. I can find no particular link between these areas of settlement unless it is something to do with mining.

The surname database suggests that the name derives from one of the Magi, Caspar and means a keeper or bringer of treasure. The name is not registered with the Guild of One Name Studies.

In our family the name is spelt either Jasper or Jesper at various times.

Mary Ann Jasper 1854-1924

Mary Ann Jasper is probably the most shadowy figure of all the great grandmothers.. No one has passed on any memories of her;  I can’t recollect my grandfather ever speaking of his mother, and of course my mother never told us anything about the Billinghams.

And yet – she and her husband upped sticks and went to the North east for some years, which when one considers all the other branches of the family who never moved out of the Black Country, probably took some doing.

Her son Frank, my grandfather, was a handsome, charming and rather feckless man, everyone’s friend, but unreliable. Did these traits come from the Billinghams or the Jaspers?

Mary Ann Jasper was born on 9th December 1854 in Quarry Bank. Her parents were William Jasper and Mirah Edwards.

The 1861 census shows the family living at Vine Terrace Quarry Bank, where they remained in 1871. 16 year old Mary Ann is described as a common nail maker. It’s not clear whether common describes her or the type of nails she made.

On Christmas Day In 1876 Mary Ann married Thomas Billingham an iron puddler. Their eldest daughter Sarah was born in Quarry Bank in 1880, but by 1881 the family had moved to Middlesborough, where there was presumably work for iron puddlers in the Teeside shipbuilding industry. Their address was 45 Hatherley Street, Linthorpe, which seems to no longer exist, (and which is only four miles from the town of Billingham).

However by 1891 they were back in Quarry Bank living at 57 Vine Street. Two children were born in Middlesborough, Joseph in 1882 and Maria in 1884. Three more children were born after their return to Quarry Bank; Hannah in 1886, Frank in 1890, and Annie in 1893. At this time they also had lodgers, Reuben Bloomer a coal miner, his wife Violet and their infant daughter Sophia.

1901 saw Mary Ann and Thomas on the move again, but this time only as far as 6 Victoria Road Quarry Bank, and a further child Harriet was born in 1896. Sarah was working as a domestic servant and Joseph as a bucket factory saucepan maker.

In the 1911 census the family has moved along the road to 32 Victoria Street, and of the children, only Frank and Harriet were still living at home.

Thomas died on 5th March 1913, at home, aged 61 of bronchitis, but Mary Ann lived on till 17th November 1924 when she died, also of bronchitis, aged 70.

William Jasper 1826-? and Mirah Edwards 1829-1885 -.

William is a bit of a mystery. His birth isn’t registered of course, and our story is also complicated by there being a William Jasper also born in 1826 who is a gardener in Kidderminster and whose wife is also called Emma (the name of our William’s second wife).

According to IGI a William Jesper was christened on Christmas Eve 1826 at St Thomas Dudley. His parents were Edward Jesper and Mary. I’ll assume that this is the Kidderminster William because, according to the marriage certificate of William Jesper and Mirah Edwards, his father is William Jesper a labourer. And in the 1841 census there is a Jesper family in Quarry Bank with a son called William of the right age, and the parents names are William and Sarah.

William married Mirah Edwards at Holy Trinity Amblecote on 18th November 1849. The witnesses were Hannah Jesper and Edward Jarratt. Hannah and Edward married each other in 1851. It’s not clear what relation Hannah is to William. IGI gives her parents as David and Phoebe Jesper.

By the 1851 census William is married to Mirah Edwards (or Maria as she appears in the census), and they don’t yet have children. They are living in Quarry Bank and are lodging with Jane Edwards, Mirah’s mother. William is, and remains an iron puddler.

William and Mirah had 8 children
Henry 1853
Mary Ann  1854
Sarah  1856
Samuel  1858
Alice 1860
Jane 1864
William 1867
David 1872.

By 1861, the family is living in Vine Terrace and although Jane Edwards is still living with them William is shown as head of household

In the 1881 census Mirah appears as Mercy and is shown as being born in 1826. The family is now living in Vine Street with three of the children, Jane, William and David

Mirah died in 1885 aged 55 and William married again in 1891 to Emma Collins a widow with two children. They appear in the 1891 census living with William. Emma died in 1898.

I have not found a death record for our William. (Kidderminster William died in 1904). William does not appear in the 1901 or 1911 censuses so we must assume that he died between 1898 and 1901. In 1898 he registered the death of his second wife Emma. At the time he was living in Sheffield Street Quarry Bank. I have checked the 1901 census for Sheffield Street but there are no Jaspers living there. (There are however 7 Billingham households in the street).

William Jesper  1793-1872 and Sarah Green 1796 -

William was born in Oldswinford in 1793, according to later censuses, and according to IGI he was christened in Oldswinford on 19th May 1793. His parents were Humphrey Jasper and Pridence..

According to IGI William Jesper married Sarah Green on 14th April 1816 at Oldswinford.

By the census of 1841 he is married to Sarah. They live in Quarry Bank and have 8 children

Mary 1821
Joseph 1826
William 1826
Henry 1828
Elizabeth 1833
Harriet 1835
Thomas 1838
John 1840

By 1851 Joseph and William have left home (we know that William was married by then) and all the remaining boys are working in the ironworks. The girls are nailers.

I can’t find William and Sarah in the 1861 census, but they show again in 1871. They children have all gone and they are living in New Road Kingswinford. William, who is 78, is described as an annuitant, which suggests that he had an income. But from where, he was a labourer? Did something happen in those missing years.

William died in 1872 at Quarry Bank. I can’t find a record of Sarah’s death but she is missing from the 1881 census.

Humphrey Jasper 1761–1841 and Prudence Skidmore 1771- 1842

In the census of 1841 Prudence is living with her children in Quarry Bank and according to the WMBMD Humphrey died in 1841 and Prudence in 1842. According to Humphrey’s death certificate he was living in Amblecote and was 80 when he died, which means that he was born around 1871. IGI doesn’t give us a birth record for Humphrey, but I have searched the public member records on Ancestry, which suggests that Humphrey was born on 14th July 1763 in Alveley in Shropshire and that he married Prudence Skidmore in Oldswinford.  His parents are shown as John Jasper and Jane Rolls, and his grandparents as Joseph Jasper and Elizabeth Robinson.

These public trees suggest that the children of Humphrey and Prudence are

William              1793
Ann                  1795
Jane                 1803
Sarah                1812

Of course most of the family trees in Ancestry feed off each other, so will need to be verified at the County Record Office, but for once we have some leads rather than a cold trail.


Sunday 29 July 2012

The last great grandmother


Mary Ann Jasper is probably the most shadowy figure of all the great grandmothers.. No one has passed on any memories of her;  I can’t recollect my grandfather ever speaking of his mother, and of course my mother never told us anything about the Billinghams.

And yet – she and her husband upped sticks and went to the North east for some years, which when one considers all the other branches of the family who never moved out of the Black Country, probably took some doing.

Her son Frank, my grandfather was a handsome, charming and rather feckless man, everyone’s frie3nd, but unreliable. Did these traits come from the Billinghams or the Jaspers?

Mary Ann Jasper was born on 9th December 1854 in Quarry Bank. Her parents were William Jasper and Mirah Edwards.

The 1861 census shows the family living at Vine Terrace Quarry Bank, where they remained in 1871. 16 year old Mary Ann is described as a common nail maker. It’s not clear whether common describes her or the type of nails she made.

On Christmas Day In 1876 Mary Ann married Thomas Billingham an iron puddler. Their eldest daughter Sarah was born in Quarry Bank in 1880, but by 1881 the family had moved to Middlesborough, where there was presumably work for iron puddlers in the Teeside shipbuilding industry. Their address was 45 Hatherley Street, Linthorpe, which seems to no longer exist, (and which is only four miles from the town of Billingham).

However by 1891 they were back in Quarry Bank living at 57 Vine Street. Two children were born in Middlesborough, Joseph in 1882 and Maria in 1884. Three more children were born after their return to Quarry Bank; Hannah in 1886, Frank in 1890, and Annie in 1893. At this time they also had lodgers, Reuben Bloomer a coal miner, his wife Violet and their infant daughter Sophia.

1901 saw them on the move again, but this time only as far as 6 Victoria Road Quarry Bank, and a further child Harriet was born in 1896. Sarah was working as a domestic servant and Joseph as a bucket factory saucepan maker.

In the 1911 census the family has moved along the road to 32 Victoria Street, and of the children, only Frank and Harriet were still living at home.

Thomas died on 5th March 1913, at home, aged 61 of bronchitis, but Mary Ann lived on till 17th November 1924 when she died, also of bronchitis, aged 70.


Thursday 26 July 2012

The Perry Family Story


Much of the research for this story is gleaned from Nigel Perry who has been an enormous help to us.

The Perry Name

According to Nigel Perry’s family history manuscript, the origins of the name are varied. The place name Perry was derived from the cultivation of pear trees (very appropriate in Worcestershire). The family in the Black Country descend from Sir Pagan de Parles, a 12th century knight. His son became known S Henry de Pirie after the manor of the same name. They probably held land in Perry Barr, very close to Great Barr where Julia and I lived as children. There was also a manor called Perry on the eastern side of Worcester in Martin Hussingtree, very close to where I live now..

However, the riff raff side of the family, from whom we are of course descended lived mainly around the Lye and Oldswinford.

The GB Names map shows three concentrations in 1881, the West Midlands, Cornwall Devon and Somerset, and Essex and Hertfordshire. The name is not registered with the Guild of One Name studies.

Ann Elizabeth Perry 1869- 1927

Our great grandmother Ann Elizabeth Perry was born on 4th August 1869 and died in 6th April 1927 of a brain tumour. She was married to James Morris the jeweller. For a long time we could find no record of the marriage either in the registration sites or in the parish records for St Marys Oldswinford where she lived and where all her siblings were married. However, the mystery has now been solved by Gill Hibberd. She has found the marriage certificate, but it throws up more questions than it answers.

James and Ann were married on March 2nd 1889, at the parish church in Harborne. The witnesses were her father William Perry and her sister Matilda Perry. But Ann Elizabeth Perry is listed as Lizzie Ann Perry (Geoffrey Morris always refers to her as Lizzie, so we must assume that is how she was known). And they were married in Harborne , then part of Kings Norton and in Staffordshire. Now of course it is a suburb of Birmingham. Both give their address as High Street Harborne, though no numbers are given, and we need not assume they were at the same address. So what were they doing there?

They were presumably not there very long. The census of 1891 shows them married and living at Brettel Lane Kingswinford, while in the previous 1881 census they were both teenagers living at home with their parents, James at Engine Lane the Lye and Lizzie at Hagley Road Upper Swinford.

And so in an effort to find why they were in Harborne,  I scrolled through all the addresses in High Street Harborne in the 1891 census (the nearest to when they were there). There are 275 households so it was quite a trawl.

There are two possibilities as to why Lizzie, as we shall now call her was there.

At number 39 lived Mishack Perry, a horsenail maker who was born on Oldswinford. I checked his parentage on IGI and he not a brother of our William Henry.
At no 255 was Charles Perry, a nailer, also born in Oldswinford. He was born in 1835 and I haven’t been able to find his parentage in the IGI which has suddenly become even less useful than before.

We’ll never know the truth of course but the possibilities are interesting.

We also have no record of what, if anything she did for a living before she was married, as the marriage certificate doesn’t tell us.

At the time of her birth Lizzie’s family were living in Field Lane Oldswinford and her father is William Henry Perry, a nailmaker. The first census in which Lizzie appears is the 1871, by which time the family has moved to Hagley Road Oldswinford, and that and the 1881 show her living with her parents William Henry and Ann.

The 1891 census shows Ann now married to James Morris living at Brettell lane Kingswinford with baby Annie. For the rest of her story see the Morrises.

William Henry Perry (1843-1932) and Ann Elizabeth Partridge (1844-1909)

William Henry Perry was born on 19th May 1843. His parents are given as Samuel Perry, a nailer and Elizabeth Perry (formerly Hill). He first appears in the census in 1851, living with his parents,

The 1861 census shows the family name as Pary rather than Perry and the Findmypast transcript shows William Henry as William Mary. At this stage and in 1851 the family’s address is simply Upper Swinford.

William married Ann Partridge in 1862. Both are 19. His occupation is given as a nailer and she doesn’t have one. William’s father Samuel is a nailmaker and Ann’s father William Partridge is a moulder. By 1871 they are living in Hagley Road Oldswinford. Willam is working as horse nail maker. They already have 4 children

Samuel             1863
William H          1865
Albert               1867
Ann Elizabeth    1869.
Living with them is Harriot Hill, William’s grandmother.


Little has changed by 1881 They are at the same address. Harriot Hill is no longer with them and there are several more children

Matilda             1872
John Ernest      1874
Charles Arthur   1878
Minnie Rose      1881.

But by 1891 they have moved to Furlong Road. William is now a town letter carrier, and Ann is also working, as a laundress. Of the children, Samuel, William Junior, Albert, Lizzie and Matilda have all left home; John is working as a spinner and two more children have been born.

Edward             1884
Sidney              1886.

On the night of the census there is a visitor George Davies, a glass cutter. George came originally from Brettell Lane. In the 1901 and 1911 censuses he lives at 11 Lawrence Street with his wife Alice, a brick moulder from Stambermill. I can find no obvious link between him and the Perrys.

In 1901 they have moved again to Field Lane Upper Swinford. No more children have been born. Minnie, Edward and Sidney are all single and living at home. A daughter in law Ellen is there that night with her son John E. So we might assume she is married to John Ernest. (who is not there).

Ann Perry (nee Partridge) died in 1909, and at some time after that but before the census of 1911 William and his son Sydney moved again to 41 Market Street Stourbridge, together  with his granddaughter Annie Morris (our grandmother). He is described as a retired postman and Sidney is a brewer’s clerk.

William died in 1932, aged 89. He was living at 5 The Furlongs Oldswinford and the death was registered by his daughter Matilda, now Savage. Interestingly my mother never mentioned him, although she was 11 when he died.

Samuel Perry (1815-1894) and Elizabeth Hill (1821-1901)

Samuel and Elizabeth were, of course born before the registration of births. I have, however found their christenings on IGI. Samuel was christened on 22nd October 1815 at St Mary’s Oldswinford. His parents were James and Jane Perry. Elizabeth was christened at the Wesleyan Chapel in Stourbridge on 27th May 1821. Her parents are Jacob and Harriet Hill.

Samuel and Elizabeth were married at St Mary’s Oldswinford in 1838. His father is a nailer and hers (Jacob Hill) is a miner. Samuel and Elizabeth were both illiterate and both of them are nailers. At the time of their marriage Samuel was living at Upper Swinford and Elizabeth at Chawnhill.

 In the 1841 census Samuel and Elizabeth are married and have two of their eventual three children

Harriet   1839
Hannah 1840.
Samuel is a nailer and they are living in Heath Lane Oldswinford.

 By the 1851 census William has been born. Samuel, Elizabeth and their two daughters aged 12 and 10 are all working as nailers. They have moved to Upper Swinford.

In the 1861 census the family name is spelled Pary. Everyone, including William, is working as a nailer, and there is also a granddaughter Mina Moore Perry, born in 1860 who is 10 months old. According to her birth certificate Mina is the daughter of Hannah who is unmarried and no father is named.

In 1871, Samuel and Elizabeth, both now in their 50s are living with their granddaughter Mina at Beauty Bank Stourbridge. Samuel is still a horse nail maker but no occupation is given for Elizabeth.

1881 sees them in dear old Enville Street at no 63. Samuel has become a greengrocer and Mina is his assistant. A number of other people are at the same address.

A single lady called Fanny Wise, aged 25 who is described at the Perry’s boarder. She is retired and living on money consols' William Wise, who is presumably related to her, also aged 25, as described as the head of a household (as is Samuel). He has a wife and 2 children, and he is also living on money consols

1891 is the last census for Samuel and Elizabeth. In this census the family name is spelled Parry. They have moved again to King William St Amblecote. Samuel is described as a retired greengrocer. Their granddaughter Matilda is there and a great granddaughter Henrietta. Mina is no longer there. She married Alfred Bishop in 1881.

On Samuel’s death certificate in 1894 their address is given as Ford View South Street . Ann Elizabeth Perry, daughter in law registered the death and her address is given as the Furlongs Oldswinford. Elizabeth died in 1901. She was still at Ford View living with her grand daughter A.E (Ann Elizabeth?) Fletcher.

James Perry (1775-1835) and Jane Sparry (?-1847)

Most of this information is from the St Mary’s parish records, although I do have death certificate for Jane who died a widow in 1847. We have not found a birth record either in the parish register or the IGI for either of them. There is some discrepancy over Jane’s birth year. Julia has 1772, the 1841 census has 1781, and her death certificate in 1847 says she is 70 which would give us 1777 as her birth year.

James Perry and Jane Sperry were married on 16th December 1799 at St Mary’s Oldswinford, the witnesses being John Gadd and Elizabeth Round.

James and Jane had 10 children, all of whom were baptised at St Mary’s

Sebra               1801
John                 1803
William              1805
James              1810
Jane                 1811
Hannah             1813
Samuel             1815
Isaac                1818
George             1820
Benjamin           1823

James was a nailer in Upper Swinford. In 1818 he is mentioned as a parish pauper (some 40% of the local population were paupers that year) and in 1823 he was living in Oldswinford village.

There is a record of James’ burial on 17th August 1835 at St Mary’s

The census of 1841 shows Jane living with her two youngest sons George and Benjamin in Field Lane.

Jane died on 16th September 1847, at Field Lane and the death was registered by her eldest daughter Sebra

Earlier Perrys
 
As we cannot find James' birth in the parish records we must assume he was born somewhere else. We cannot therefore currently find his father’s name and we must leave it there for now.