Skip to main content

Richard Jefferies aunties

In which I search for William Hall, who named his Swindon home Longford Villa after his Irish birthplace, and ended up in Jefferies Land.

The inscription on an intricately carved Celtic cross in a prominent place in the Christ Church burial ground provided enough information to start my research.

Examples of free standing Celtic crosses have been discovered in Ireland dating back to the 7th century, so it came as no surprise that this memorial was for an Irishman.

William Hall was born on September 8, 1815. I found the first reference to him living in Swindon in the online UK Railway Employment Records 1833-1956 when he entered the employment of the Great Western Railway on January 1, 1846 as a clerk.

By 1881 he has climbed the professional and social ladder. He describes himself as 'Accountant Loco Dept of GWRailway' and he now lives in an impressive property along The Sands (Bath Road) which he names Longford Villa after his birthplace.

But as regular readers of this blog will know, it is William's wife who I am really interested in. The woman who appears on census returns as having no occupation or profession, just an appendage to her husband's life and career.

Martha's father John Luckett Jefferies had left his Swindon home and moved to London and a job with a Mr Taylor, a printer and publisher with a business in Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. John married Fanny Ridger at Old Church, St Pancras on November, 1809.

Their first child, a son James, was born on May 2, 1811 and died 16 days later. Four more children were born in London, Fanny on June 30, 1812; Eliza on August 18, 1813, Mary on January 12, 1815 and James Luckett Jefferies on December 8, 1816. And then the bombshell! A letter from Swindon adopted a worrying tone. There were concerns about the family business and John's eccentric brother who was in charge.

In 1816 John was forced to leave the job, the home and the life he loved in London to return to Swindon.

The family continued to grow and Martha was born in 1818 followed by Sarah in 1820; Richard in 1822 and John in 1824.

Martha Jefferies married William Hall at Holy Rood, Swindon's original parish church, on June 30, 1849 and the couple had seven children. Their youngest son Frederick James died aged six years old and is buried with Martha's Jefferies ancestors in a large grave in Holy Rood churchyard.

Join the Swindon Heritage team for a guided walk around Holy Rood Church and graveyard on Sunday July 28. Meet at the church in Lawn, Old Town for 2 pm.



Martha Hall (right) pictured with her sister Fanny Cox

The Hall siblings and their cousin

William and Martha Hall



Grave of William and Martha Hall

Jefferies family grave in Holy Rood churchyard. This is not the grave of author Richard Jefferies who is buried in Broadwater Cemetery, Worthing.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My neck of the woods

Did you know that our neck of the woods was once just that - part of a wood, a very big wood? And not just any old wood but a Royal forest no less - Braydon Forest. The origins of Braydon Forest date back to the 9th century and a belt of woodland stretching from the Thame Valley to the Vale of Blackmore and known to the Saxons as Sealwudu. The Saxon lords were pretty easy going, it would appear, and then along came the Normans with their system of forest law, courts and officialdom. Braydon became a royal forest by 1135 and in the 13th century it contained an area of some 46 square miles. The forest bounds included not only woodland but fields of arable, meadow and pasture and even villages such as those of Lydiard Tregoze, Lydiard Millicent and Purton. In 1256, during the reign of Henry III the king gave Robert Tregoze 3 bucks and 8 does from Braydon to restock his park at Lydiard Tregoze and in 1270 John Tregoze obtained a royal licence to 'inclose and impark' his woo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again … Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Actually, it was the rooms of the Mechanics’ Institute Trust once based at No 1, Milton Road, Swindon, where Mark Sutton, Graham Carter and I first produced the blue print for the Swindon Heritage magazine in 2011. In my dream I was attending a shambolic meeting that roamed across the spacious office accommodation. There I met some of the key characters of this story, although not all of them. Paul Gregory, or was it Noel Beauchamp, it could have been either, Julie Carter and a hot dog vendor (so vivid was the illusion that when I awoke, I had the taste of onions in my mouth). Then there was an on-going, ambulatory talk about saving the Mechanics’ Institute reminiscent of the famous ‘Save the Clock Tower’ scene in the 80s film Back to the Future. This account is rather rambling, isn’t it, but isn’t that the nature of a dream – making perfect sense when you are in it and none at all when you wake up? ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Edith New - Swindon Suffragette

In 1906 the suffragette campaign entered its most violent phase. Over 500 women had been imprisoned by 1909 and right up there among the militant activists was a Swindon schoolteacher. Edith Bessie New was born 17th March, 1877 at 24 North Street, Swindon, the fourth of Frederic and Isabelle New's five children. Frederic worked as a railway clerk at the GWR Works and Isabelle was a music teacher. An assistant mistress at Queenstown Infant School from 1899-1901, Edith subsequently left her Swindon home to teach in the deprived areas of Deptford and Lewisham. It was after hearing the charismatic Emmeline Pankhurst speak at a meeting in Trafalgar Square that Edith joined the Women's Social and Political Union. In February 1907 a deputation of suffragettes marched on the House of Commons in protest at the omission of votes for women from the King's speech. What had begun as a peaceful demonstration ended in a violent confrontation with police. Edith was among those arr...
2 comments
Read more