Mavis

I never met my maternal grandmother, Laura Gertrude Watson, born in January 1866 at Goodrich, near Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, as she died in 1930, before I was born. She was the first child of Peter and Mary Watson, who themselves had grown up alongside each other in Goodrich, and had gone to the same village school and church, where they married in August 1865.

Laura’s maternal grandfather and grandmother were both employed as general domestic servants throughout their married life at nearby Goodrich Court, a local manor house with a large estate, and by the time Laura was born her grandfather had climbed the hierarchical ladder to become head coachman. From infancy Laura lived with her grandparents, although her natural parents lived and worked on the same manorial estate and raised a further six children. Despite not living under the same roof as her siblings Laura was very fond of them and in later years would name her own children after them.

By the time Laura was five years old her grandfather was a senior member of the household staff at Goodrich Court and would most likely have taken her with him to the manor on many occasions, where she would have been gradually introduced to the many aspects of life both above and below stairs. It would have been a natural progression for Laura to become a housemaid while at the same time attending the village school on a part-time basis. Her grandparents would also no doubt have encouraged her to broaden her horizon, especially with books. This would account for my mother telling me in later years that as a young girl she was constantly aware of her mother (Laura) reading everything she could lay her hands on, and that there was always a constant stream of neighbours and acquaintances asking her mother to write letters for them. Laura would have had access to many books at Goodrich Court, in addition to her schooling.

Laura lived with her grandparents until their death. Her grandmother was the first to die in 1888, aged eighty-one, by which time Laura was fully employed at Goodrich Court as a housemaid aged twenty-two. Grandfather followed, eighteen months later, at the grand old age of eighty-six; he never retired from service at the manor. The ‘tied’ cottage that he and Laura lived in would no doubt have been passed on to another servant and family and Laura probably became a ‘live-in’ housemaid at that time.

Just four miles away from Goodrich, across the county border between Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, lies the village of Lydbrook, situated on the banks of the river Wye in the Forest-of-Dean, Gloucestershire. Life here in the nineteenth century was very different from the rolling fields surrounding Goodrich. Iron ore found in the Forest was the life-blood of the village, with two forges operating more or less throughout the century, making tin-plate. Forest iron was considered to be the most suitable for the industry at that time, being tough and flexible.

The first processing of the tin plate began with the puddler or furnace-man. He would furnace the mixed iron and then skim off the dross, the impurities contained in the molten iron, before making the iron bars suitable for rolling into tin plate. The work was heavy and strenuous in the intense heat from the furnaces, normally burning continuously, day and night. Large quantities of tin plate were shipped down river to Bristol, for export to the United States.

My great grandfather William Bevan was a puddler at Lydbrook forge when he married Jane Jordan in June 1861. Both his father and grandfather also worked at the forge, whilst Jane’s father was a ‘free miner’- a term given to any individual who lived in the Forest and set up his own little colliery in order to feed the iron foundries with their much needed fuel for the furnaces.

William and Jane settled down in Lydbrook surrounded by their extended families, most of them employed within the iron trade, and raised their family. My grandfather William Thomas, their third child, grew up with the almost certain knowledge that he would become a foundry worker in this thriving community, and had in fact joined the workforce as a puddler himself when his father died from bronchial asthma in 1889. A young man of twenty, William Thomas now had a mother and three younger sisters to support. The loss of his father was devastating enough but worse was to come.

By 1880 the two original forges in the village had been merged into one Company, which was obtaining fuel from three large collieries in the surrounding area. However, due to workforce problems at the collieries, supplies to the foundry were severely restricted, causing much trade to be lost when the foundry couldn’t operate at full strength. Trade with the United States, already beginning to slow down, suffered this further loss and by 1890 it was the beginning of the end for tin plate in Lydbrook and the Forest of Dean. Many workers, including my grandfather, were laid off during the next decade.

William took employment at the forge in whatever capacity was available in those hard times and eventually was forced to look around for other work to supplement his income. In 1892 he arrived at Goodrich Court, the manor on the outskirts of Goodrich, and was taken on as a gardener. It was here that he met his future bride Laura Watson.

William walked the four miles from Lydbrook every day to and from Goodrich Court, and Laura who lived in the servant’s quarters would arrange to meet him when their duties were finished and they could spend some time together. Whenever they could they would go to nearby Symonds Yat and sail on the river.

Both William and Laura were in their mid-twenties when, in 1893, they decided to elope. They planned to continually travel northwards until suitable employment could be found. William’s mother and sisters had by now moved away from Lydbrook and Laura had never been happy living at the manor, and so they fled. Neither of them were ever again to see their families.

They made their way to Derby, where the iron and steel industry was flourishing, and married in January 1894, when William had obtained work as a puddler once more, and Laura was working as a housemaid. Their first child, a daughter, was born in February 1895 and named Edith Gertrude, incorporating the name of one of Laura’s sisters and also her own second Christian name. Two years later their son William Charles was born, named after Laura’s brother, and finally on 2nd February 1899 my mother Ethel Jane was born, named after Laura’s youngest sister Ethel and William’s mother Jane.

By the time my mother was born, work in Derby was dwindling and so the family moved north again, forever seeking employment, until they finally arrived at Stockport in Cheshire, about 1903, and there they settled. Work in the steel industry and work associated with the railways was more easily to be found in that area, and the children needed a more stable home life with regular schooling.

My mother never told me very much about her childhood but as far as I know she had a happy normal home life where money was scarce but love was abundant. The three children adored their parents, especially their mother, and always referred to them, even in adulthood, as Mamma and Dadda, which usually had a Welsh lilt to it. I can only presume that as children they were encouraged to adopt this little bit of Welsh language to remind their parents of home. Lydbrook certainly came under the jurisdiction of Monmouth in those days, Goodrich was situated just a few miles away, albeit in an English county, and of course they couldn’t have had a more Welsh surname than Bevan!

By the end of the first world war they were all young adults, ready to leave home to make their own way in life.