Roebuck Street in the 1921 census

 

By 1921 the make up of Roebuck Street had changed. There were 141 households Fewer people worked at Sandwell Colliery and many more at the carriage works. There were also a lot of people out of work. Families seemed to be smaller with most couple only having two or three children at home.

As far as the Hamilton were concerned in 1921,  at no 17 lived my grandparents Walter and Gertrude Lily. He was a turner at the carriage works. Their children at that stage were Arthur Dorothy, Alfred, Frederick and Joseph Sydney (my father). Also living with them were my grandmother’s brother Alfred Timmins, a butcher. According to my father he was an invalid who had been gassed in the First World War, and who didn’t live long after that. In 1939 the family were still there, with my father who had not yet joined the army being shown as a coachbuilder. My grandmother stayed in the house until the street was demolished in the early 1960s

Yet another Alfred, Alfred Hamilton, who I assume was my grandfather’s brother, lived at no 36. He also worked at the carriage works. He had two sons, Alfred and Walter. I think Walter must be my father’s cousin and friend Waller, as they were born in the same year. Waller famously refused to go down the pit as a Bevan boy and was sent to jail, after telling the judge that if it was so important then the judge should go down the pit himself. He later joined the army. I believe that in the 60s and 70s he also lived in Great Barr but I do not remember him. Number 36 isn’t listed in the 1939 register for some reason, so we don’t know what happened after that.

Number 66 was the home of my great grandfather Joseph, who was an engine winder at Sandwell Colliery. Here’s a picture of a winding engine now in the Black Country Living Museum J&C Stark Winding Engine © Ashley Dace :: Geograph Britain and Ireland. As far as I can make out an engine winder worked above ground and was responsible for the maintenance of the machinery. His father Samuel Amblett had been killed maintaining the winding machinery at Tipton Green colliery. By 1921 Joseph was 71, so presumably he had retired. Only two children are at home, Joseph Sydney (after whom Dad must have been named) and Phyllis Lilian. According to Dad she was a modern woman. In 1921 when she was 21 she was a bookkeeper and typist and according to my father, in the 1930s she rode a motorbike, and ran away to Tenbury Wells with a married man and kept a sweet shop. Unusually my great grandfather had owned no 66, and by 1939 my father’s eldest brother Arthur and his wife Minnie lived there. Dorothy (Auntie Dorrie) also lived there until she married in 1940. There was someone else whose record has been redacted.

In the 1950s we lived at no 85. It wasn’t one of the family houses and in 1921 William Bytheway lived there with his wife Ethel. He was an engineer at Turners Engineers in Birmingham. In the 1939 Register they had left.  Herbert Alford an inspector of castings lived there with his wife Winifred who was the manageress of a grocery shop.

And finally at no 102 were Ernest Hamilton, my grandfather’s brother and his wife Gertrude. He was a fitter at the carriage works. They were still there in the 1939 register, and I remember them in the 1950s when we lived opposite.

A brush with Royalty

More from my father Joseph Sydney Hamilton

When we were young we were quite hard up as most people were who lived in the street, in spite of living in a very affluent middle class area, Birmingham Rd. and Beeches Rd., but we never went short thanks to our mother’s house keeping management, but we had to try and earn money even when we were quite young. One was taking dinners to the carriage works, our father always had his dinner took to the factory every day, and we had to take Uncle Joe’s and Uncle Ernie’s, in a basin ina wicker basket. Three baskets that meant two of us. I started when I was ten helped by Stan who was three years younger Uncle Joe lived down Trinity Rd. and I left school early Beeches Rd. and then Cronehills, run all the way to Uncle Joe’s run through Kenricks Park pick up Uncle Ernie’s Dinner down Roebuck St, then to our house pick up Father’s and we half run half walked to the works. If we were late or spilled the gravy, we were in trouble. To-day this would be considered child cruelty. One day taking the dinners I had my brush with Royalty. We had to pass the Albion ground to get to the works. And that year the Albion had won the cup, an when we approached the main entrance, men in bowler hats and police inspectors lined the pavement, and we barged through only to be pushed back has the Prince of Wales who later became the Duke of Windsor, came out and the men raised their bowler hats and cheered, and very nearly walked in to him. From there they went on to the Carriage Works for a conducted tour and father and uncles did not get their dinner till past two, their dinners were cold but could not blame us. We used to get a shilling a week for taking the dinners which mother had. One other thing we had to do was to fetch coal from the pit a Saturday morning, we had this big wooden trolley , home made which held as cwt of coal. it was quite awkward to cope with as well as the fact we had to pull it over the railway bridge. There were other lads fetching coal we left the trolleys at the bottom and we all helped to pull the trolleys over the bridge one at a time. When we unloaded we went back, to get coal for neighbours for money of course. And then when we were twelve we went golf caddying at Sandwell Park Golf Club
The rules were you had to be twelve before you could be a caddy till you were sixteen. The fee was one and sixpence a round (seven and a half pence in to-days money, sometimes you got a bit extra, mother had that and you got a penny back. We went Saturday and Sunday and evenings in the summer, that is after the dinner and coal run. When we started work we still went caddying but had sixpence back. As time went on into the thirty’s and more of us were working we came reasonably better off, than quite a lot, we were the first to have a car. Arthur bought a Austin Seven for twenty pounds in 1934,He got married about that time, and we had better cars which brother Alf used to drive and look after, A natural mechanic was Alfred. Mother had certain rules. When you started work at fourteen mother had your wages and gave you a shilling (5p). When you got to sixteen you kept your wages and paid board an looked after yourself, bought your own clothes etc. So life was not so bad compared with others

Dad's childhood story

My father wrote down his early memories when Mandy first strated the family history. In memory of him here they are

Joseph Sydney Hamilton.

Some notes on my childhood and life!

There were nine of us in the family plus Mother and Father.

This was my family in chronological order.

Father :-Walter Hamilton

Mother :-Lily Gertrude

Arthur married Minnie Bates,Children Brian and Alan

Dorrie (Dorothy) married Arthur Hawthorn one child Ann

Alfred, married Cathy Shelton one child Graham

Fredrick married Molly,no children

Syd (Joseph Sydney) married Betty Billingham, children Diana and Julia

Stanley married Irene White,children Nigel and Kerry

Norman married Olive, children Paul and Geoffrey.

Betty married Don Walklem.children Deborah Beverley and Donna

Donald married Beryl,one child Lynne.

We all attended Beeches Road Junior School, l was the first to pass for Cronhills senior school, l think some of the others went later.

We were all born and were brought up at 17 Roebuck St , number 17 was a two up and two down end of terrace house, it had an outside washouse (the brewus) the brewhouse as it was called, there was also the coal place (the coal hole) the outside toilet and a very long narrow garden.

We had a cellar which was sometimes used for coal but this always had a couple of feet of water,the top of the cellar steps was the pantry, there was no light so you had to take a candle and when you lent in to get something off the shelf there was always a danger of falling down the cellar steps.

There house had two gas lights downstairs but everywhere else you used a candle. Of course we had a coal-fire, Mother did all her cooking on the fire or in the oven that the fire heated.

Many years later we had a gas stove put in the brewus, which meant that the food had to be carried from the brewus  across the yard in all weather into the house, later when we were older we did build a veranda for cover and to link the two buildings.

                                                      1.

We were told that when our parents moved into number 17 the row of five houses were empty and they had their pick. Father picked the end one ,a prime site for his pigeon pen, the pigeons were his main interest in life that and the pub on the corner”Three Mile Oak” The upside of keeping the pigeons were the eggs which we sometimes had for breakfast, Father would kill the pigeon that were no longer useful and we would have pigeon pie. The pigeon manure which was a good fertilizer father had a very productive garden.

When we were young we were quite hard up as most people were who lived in the street in spite of living in the very affluent middle class area of Birmingham Rd and Beeches Rd in West Bromwich.

We never went short of anything thanks to our mother’s good

housekeeping management. We were expected to try and earn money even when we were quite young. Our lunch time job was taking dinners to the carriage works, our father always had his dinner delivered to the factory every day, and we also had to take Uncle Joe’s and Uncle Ernie’s in a basin inside a wicker basket. Three baskets meant two of us needed to go. I started the lunch run when I was ten helped by my brother Stan who was three years younger.

Uncle Joe lived along Trinity Rd. and I needed to leave my junior school at lunch time early (Beeches Road School.) and then later the secondary school (Cronehills) and run all the way to Uncle Joe’s, running through Kendricks Park to pick up Uncle Ernie’s dinner then down Roebuck St to our house to pick up Father’s dinner, we really had to half run half walked to get to dinners the works on time.

If we were late or spilled the gravy, we were in big trouble. Today l think this would be considered child cruelty.

Roebuck Street: a start

I’ve decided to digress a little and look at the history of Roebuck Street. It plays a large part in the Hamilton/Timmins part of the family history, and according to Dad the family owned extensive property in the street at one time. I’ve just looked ta the Land Registry site and it’s not available on a Sunday. What planet are these people living on.

What I know so far, from the Victoria County History, is that Roebuck Lane existed by the later 18th century  and probably much earlier. A house called the Roebuck at the north end existed in 1684 and was demolished c.1855.  Also at the top of Roebuck Lane, and on its western side, was a  house called Springfields.  By1795 it was the home of Archibald Kenrick.  After his death in 1835 his son Archibald lived there; it was rebuilt probably about that time. The younger Archibald was still living there in 1850, but it subsequently became the home of W. Bullock, an iron-founder like the Kenricks. By 1860 it had been bought by Thomas Bache Salter, and it remained the Salters' home until c. 1906. In 1970 it was the social club of G. Salter & Co. Ltd. By 1836 there was a large house to the south of Springfields called Oakley; it was owned by Timothy Kenrick, son of the elder Archibald Kenrick. It was demolished c. 1960. Roebuck Street was laid out as Park Village in the 1850s; by 1970, however, the street was given over to light industry. The area around Grove Crescent between Roebuck Lane and Roebuck Street was formerly occupied by the Grove and its 4-acre estate; the property was sold in 1892 and built over.

An ancient tree known as the Three Mile Oak formerly stood on the northside of the main road near the boundary; by the1830s it had disappeared, but the name was preserved by the near-by inn and toll-gate.

From: 'West Bromwich: The growth of the town', A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 17: Offlow hundred (part) (1976), pp. 4-11. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=36157  Date accessed: 22 April 2012.

No mention is made of Roebuck Street in Mary Willett’s “A History of West Bromwich, first published in 1882, but that is hardly surprising, as the book concentrates on the prominent families and large houses of the town, and does not mention the effects of the industrial revolution at all.

By 1911, the last point for which I currently have any data, the Hamiltons occupied no 17 (Gert & Walter), no 66 (Joseph  and Sarah Emily, and their younger children) and no 102 (Ernie & Gert). Joseph and Sarah Emily had been living at no 74 in 1891 and 41 in 1901. We moved into no 85 in the early 1950s and Arthur & Minnie with Brian and Alan also lived in the street but I can’t remember the number. I will have to ask Alan.

There’s a lot more to do looking at land ownership, directories etc.