James Timmins (1821-1879) (James the 3rd)

Last year I began a project to work backwards filling in all the gaps in the direct ancestors. After a gap of a year I am taking that up again. I had reached the great great grandparents, of whom there are 16, and had already posted Samuel Hamlet and Sarah Whitehouse, and William Mills and Elizabeth Webb on the paternal side. James Timmins (the 3rd) is the next on my list.

James was born in 1821 before registration started in 1836 and we therefore do not have a birth certificate for him or for his wife Ann Worrall. However later censuses show that he was born in West Bromwich.

 

The IGI shows only one James Timmins christened on 8^th July 1821 in West Bromwich. His parents are shown as James Timmins and Jane Timmins, and I have them living in West Bromwich in 1841.

 

I haven’t found James the 3^rd  and Ann on the 1841 census, which isn’t unusual, and its possible they weren’t married by then as their first child was born in 1843,. There is a Timmins family living in Thomas Street in 1841 and as the household head is also called James and is a bayonet maker (a precursor of spring maker), we can guess that this is his parents and siblings. Where James was that night we shall never know. He could have been missed off by the enumerator or staying somewhere else where they didn’t bother to include him.

 

There is a bit of a mystery. On James 4^th’s birth certificate his father’s name is given as George . Is it possible that James 3^rd was also known as George? It’s unlikely as he had a brother called George.

We know that Ann’s maiden name was Worrall because it is given clearly on the birth certificates of her children Cornelius and Eliza Jane. And the father’s name is given correctly as James. Ann Worrall appears to be a common name but neither Find My Past nor IGI has a ecord of an Ann Worrall marrying anyone called Timmins. However I have found a marriage record for an Ann Worrall in 1841 in Warwickshire, although it doesn’t suggest a husband’s name (sod’s law). I have sent for the certificate, so we’ll see if it’s the right one.

 

Like several of his sons and grandsons James was a whitesmith. In the 1851 census he is described as a spring balance maker and in 1861 as a whitesmith.

 

James and Ann had 7 children

 George             1843 a whitesmith

Cornelius          1844 a whitesmith

Elizabeth           1847

James              1849 a whitesmith (our ancestor James 4^th )

Eliza Jane         1851

Mary                 1854

Jane                 1856

 

It shows a distinct lack of imagination to call one child Elizabeth, one Jane and a third Eliza Jane

 

The family lived at a number of addresses in West Bromwich. In 1851 and 1861 they were in Thomas Street and in 1871 they were in George Street. In 1851 they had a married couple Thomas and Rebecca Morgan as lodgers. He was a stone miner. Rebecca may have been James sister. Her birth dates fit. In 1861 Thomas Worrall aged 11 months was staying with them. He was born in Willenhall and was presumably related. In 1871 their baby granddaughter Patience Jane Timmins who was born in Yorkshire was with them. Thomas Worrall doesn’t show in the area in the 1871 census and a 5 year old called Patience Timmins died in West Bromwich in 1876.

 

James died on 11^th March 1879 in Overend Street. He died from Phthisis Pulmonalis which is an archaic term for tuberculosis. Ann died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 8^th August 1884. At the time she was living at 5 Herbert street which appears to have been almshouses.

 

Starting Work

Dad's teenage years

So we go into the 1930’s and things were much better, for us anyway. The Carriage Works had opened up and were busy, Father , Arthur and Alf went back , Fred went to K&J’s the printers and as said earlier I was at the Cronehills Central school, and it was my intension not to work at the Carriage Works I took the Commercial course ,and when I left school I got a job as office boy at Chance Bros. The glass works down Spon Lane, the first rung of the ladder for my ultimate success. But alas it was not to be. After about six months Father said the job was not suitable for me, and I was to go to the Carriage Works with the others. I think he had the best motives, and to be fair to him I started he the best department which did the fitting out of the interiors of the coaches, a clean job, we wore a white apron and a collar and tie. And when we were lads you were expected to have a clean apron on a Monday morning, sometimes sent home to get one if you lived near enough which most did in those days, but I soon settled in and was reasonably content, with my pocket money and my golf money my teenage were pretty good. Except for one thing, The political and the diplomatic scene was pretty dire and everyone expected that there would be a war, which there was in September 1939. Fred was called up very early in the war, Arthur and Alf were in reserved occupations, and I not quite old enough. I was not very happy with my job in the early part of the war, So I left the Carriage Works an got a job at Harris and Sheldons a firm of shop fitters in Birmingham, nobody would believe that a Hamilton was leaving. The word went round, ’young Hamilton is leaving, and when Father knew when I got home with my tool-box, the heavens opened up, I had committed the gravest sin. But time is a great healer, and I settled in to my new job very well making parts for aircraft, which was a reserved occupation, for now I was military age.
About this time A young lady from Stourbridge named Betty Billingham, did the same as me, left her job against her parents wishes, went to the Ministry of Labour in Birmingham and they sent her to Harris and Sheldons and that is where we met. Although quite young twenty two, I was put in charge of a section making disposable petrol tanks for spitfires fighter planes, really content. That was until I got home from work one teatime and Mother handed me a buff envelope with my calling up papers inside. Ha well I had had a good run, it did not bother me greatly everyone else of my age had gone, so be it. Next morning I had a lie in and got to work late, when I arrived the foreman came over pointing to his watch where have you been etc, and I handed him my calling up papers. He was not pleased saying I was not going in the xxxxxx army, and rushed of to the office to get someone to clear it with At the Labour exchange to cancel it. But it was not to be. I reported to Norton Barracks Worcester for training, and irrespective of my experience in industry, I was assessed to be a wireless operator driver in the Royal Artillery and I was posted to Whitby in Yorkshire for training

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.