Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Brown, Susan (O1996.34) |
| Interviewee | Susan Brown (SB) |
| Interviewer | Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR) |
| Date | 25/10/1996 |
| Transcriber by | Marilyn Taylor |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O1996.34
Interviewee: Susan Brown (SB)
Date: 25th October 1996
Venue: Ware Road
Interviewer: Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR)
Transcriber: Marilyn Taylor
Typed by: not recorded
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
Transcriber’s Note: This is a verbatim transcript of Susan Brown talking to Jean Riddell in 1996. She recounts many family stories and hearsay which she believes to be true. Later research shows that some of the stories are not true.
Susan’s great grandmother was born Susan Anne on 23rd March 1858 in Hertford Heath, the illegitimate daughter of Frances Ginn. Hertford Magistrates found Robert Childs of Hertford Heath to be the father. He was ordered to pay her 1s 6d per week from 23rd March 1858 and 19s 6d costs. On her marriage she listed her father as Robert Ginn which suggests she may have known who her father was but wanted to appear legitimate by using her mother’s surname for him. It is an interesting account of how family stories get embellished over the generations and end up far from the whole truth.
There is documentary evidence to back up the truth in the file in Hertford Museum. At one point Susan says she is not related to the Childs family only Sarah Seymour. However, it would seem she actually is related to a different branch of the Childs family but NOT Sarah Seymour! It seems Mrs Grace Law also got some of the facts the wrong way round when she passed them on and exacerbated the story. Frances Ginn died when Annie Susan was six and a half so the story of leaving her mother at 7 probably comes from that. She was taken in by Mr William Castle and says he is her uncle but so far the family link has not been made. It does not appear that Frances Ginn had any other children so there were no siblings from her, only from Robert Childs marriage.
SB: …and if only I had kept a copy of it but anyway tell me when its on.
JR: Yes, I will just say my tiny piece first.
SB: Yes you say your piece first.
JR: I just have to say I am Jean Riddell and this is the late afternoon of Friday 25th October 1996 and I am at the home of Miss Susan Brown in Ware Road. What number is it Susan?
SB: 85.
JR: 85 Ware Road and I have come this afternoon principally to hear Susan’s story of her forebears and their coming to this area. OK you’re on.
SB: Right, my maternal grandmother Mrs Annie Bone and her sister Miss Lizzie Law lost their mother in early life. My grandmother was 11 years old and her sister was only 3, their mother, who reputedly was a very lovely woman, had tragically died of, I understand, appendicitis at the early age of 34. She died on 21st December 1891and it was a very sudden death. My grandmother often recounted it, how she woke to hear awful screaming and their mother was taken away and they
never saw her again and the appalling traumatic effect it had upon them.
Well their father Mr Charles Law, who was a pipe manufacturer and tobacconist of Old Cross, Hertford, would never speak to them about their mother or tell them very much about her or her death or anything involved and one of their great regrets was that they hadn’t got a grandmother. The story that they had been told by their father was that their grandmother, their maternal grandmother, their mother’s mother of course, had been on a coach on the way to Australia whish I mean is completely ludicrous when you think of it, that a coach on the way to Australia is passing through Hertford Heath and the coach stopped at the College Arms. I think it was the College Arms, I am certain it was, it was one of the pubs in Hertford Heath, and that the mother came in to labour gave birth at the College Arms and died and the father handed her over to a Mrs Ginn who lived in the village and then went on his way to Australia.
Well this upset my grandmother and her sister very much and they often used to talk about this person and who was she. I became very intrigued in my teenage years as one does as a young girl trying to find out and of course I couldn’t get anywhere, as I obviously couldn’t and I couldn’t trace.., I went to Somerset House and I tried to find out if there were any birth certificates for around the time that my great grandmother had been born but of course I got nowhere. I just had to give up, well a year or two ago I was at a party in Hertford and I got in to conversation with Mr Peter Ruffles and I don’t know how we got on to this subject but Mr Ruffles was talking, we were talking about ancestors, he said that he had, there was a legend in his family, about his Great Great Grandmother or whoever it would have been. How this person whose name was Sarah Seymour had got on a coach a stagecoach in Peterborough given the coach driver a shilling, and told him to put her off when the money ran out.
The money ran out at the College Arms in Hertford Heath. Well apparently some people at the College took this Sarah Seymour, who incidentally was only 15 years old to Mrs Childs who lived in the village. I believe it was a cottage that was near where the church is now and Sarah Seymour eventually gave birth to a daughter and she was adopted by another village lady who I assume was Mrs Ginn. Well Sarah Seymour apparently married Mrs Child’s son and lived in Downfield Road, Hertford Heath, which I believe at the time was known as “The Street” . Well I was very much amazed by all this, I mean delving in to it trying to find something out, and I went to the Hertford Heath fete this August 1996 I haven’t been up there for years. I had a look round the churchyard and I found the grave, it was amazing I had a walk round and I found this grave, all the ages fitted exactly to what would have been this person’s age and had been my grandmother when she was 15.
On the grave is the name Daniel Childs died 23rd July 1902 aged 58 and underneath was Sarah Childs died February 15th 1930 aged 88. Well I haven’t, I am hoping soon to go, I want to go up to the records office at County Hall and try and find their marriage certificate, because when I do I can find out when Sarah Childs was born. I shall then be able…, I am going to go to Peterborough and try and trace back from there. A fact that I have forgotten to mention is that apparently she would never mention her background, Mr Ruffles told me she never talked about her background only this story of how she had come from Peterborough. I cannot understand how on earth she never had any contact with my poor grandmother and her sister as their mother had died so early so they were very unhappy, they had a stepmother who unfortunately, they were very very unhappy because as always happens when there is a second family they were treated as inferior to the second wife’s children which was a Mrs (Miss) Hugman of the butchers next door to them at Old Cross. My aunt, Mr Ruffles says something, he said something about she was supposed to, on the death of her husband, have been a housekeeper to somebody in Hertford.
JR: This is Sarah?
SB: This is Sarah, yes and my grandmother and great aunt did tell me that they do remember visiting some lady with their mother who used to make a terrible fuss of them cuddle them and make a great fuss when they visited. My great Aunt always said I don’t know, I often wonder who
she was and whether this was any link with this person but I shall never understand how their grandmother, after the death of their mother never had any contact with the…, and when they grew up, because when she died in 1930 it was a fortnight before my mothers 27th birthday.
My grandmother was 21 years older than my mother so she would have been 49, 48 wouldn’t she, so my grandmother would only have been then 48, 49 and her sister who was 8 years younger only 40 all the time was living their grandmother who they had been told had died at their (mothers) birth. I would like to know if anybody knows anything about this Sarah Childs and of course would love to see a photograph of her. Because I do want… its all very mysterious I cannot understand how, in that day and age it would have been my great grandmother was born in 1857 and I do not understand how in those days, early Victorian days a young girl gets in to that condition and then gets on, by herself, on to a coach, which is incredible, and leaves her family, it really is mindboggling isn’t it Jean?
JR: Yes
SB: I mean you know, when you think to just leave a family by herself, I mean even today its quite daunting, but in those days when they were so, what shall we say, so cosseted very sheltered lives, and of course it is the most intriguing story, too late now of course to tell my mother who would have been very interested, she was always interested in this, but I do know that a wife of one of my relations by marriage which was Mrs Grace Law, who had married my grandmothers half brother, did say to me once, after my grandmother had died, too late to tell her, that she had heard that the woman had in fact never died and lived at Hertford Heath and had had several children. She did tell me that, she said she never died, she was a young girl of 14 or 15 and she married in to the Childs family.
JR: When you first started telling me this did you not say that her husband was with her on the coach.
SB: Ah that was the story she told, that was obviously not true, that was told to my grandmother and her sister by their father for obvious respectability.
JR: I see.
SB: He would never have admitted to them that their mother was born out of wedlock I mean you know how very narrow they were in those days. It was an appalling thing, I mean he wouldn’t have admitted that. That was obviously a story.
JR: So it was a cover up really.
SB: It was a cover up.
JR: If she had a husband and she died that was the end of it for you wasn’t it?
SB: Oh yes absolutely.
JR: So if she had not died than, and had the baby later on which is what Peter is saying isn’t it?
SB: She didn’t have the baby oh no, she got off the coach, she was obviously pregnant, and was taken, what, I mean, my Great Grandmother was born, I can’t find, somewhere I had her date of birth which I believe was March 4th 1857, but she was born in 1857 I am going to try and find her birth certificate. When Sarah Seymour arrived in Hertford Heath I don’t know, how soon afterwards she was born.
JR: The baby that was born was that your grandmother?
SB: That was my great grandmother.
JR: I mean your great grandmother
SB: That was my maternal great grandmother, Annie Susan Law, when she married she became Annie Susan Law and …
JR: So we don’t know who her father was then?
SB: No we don’t know who her father was, I mean goodness knows it was a young girl who got in to trouble and the story was that.
JR: Can I check something?
SB: Yes of course.
JR: Did she take the name Ginn?
SB: Well on her marriage certificate, which somewhere I have had and I cannot find it, she is down as Annie Susan Ginn, yes. But from what my aunt can remember, my aunt being my mother’s sister who is now 86 and of course her memory is not as good as it was. But she now tells me that my great grandmother was not adopted by Mrs Ginn until she was 7 years old, she said the story was according to Grace Law. The late Mrs Grace Law whose funeral I attended this week actually, according to Mrs Grace Law she wasn’t adopted until she was 7 she didn’t leave Mrs Childs until she was 7 well I think what this was that Sarah Seymour was 2 years older than her husband Daniel Childs.
Transcriber’s Note: This possibly comes from the fact Susan Annie was not baptised until she was 6, listed as the daughter of Frances Ginn a singlewoman. Frances died 6 months later and Susan Annie went to live with her uncle William Castle and would have been almost 7 at that time.
JR: Daniel Childs.
SB: Yes my opinion was if my aunt is correct in this - that’s why I have got to try and find the marriage certificate - she married when she was 22 and Mrs Childs was 20, that’s what I would imagine. I don’t know how true this is I mean I don’t know, then obviously then was taken by Mrs Ginn. She eventually married, when she was I think about 21, my great grandfather Mr Charles Law That was my great grandmother there (shows a photo to JR?). That’s the woman who was born to Sarah Seymour.
JR: Yes and she died?
SB: Yes. Died I think of a burst appendix which my aunt said was made worse, she was only 34, it was just before Christmas, that’s why of course these poor little girls remembered it. My aunt said it was made worse, she was in terrible pain, they put scalding hot water bottles on her stomach, stupid thing to have done and she is buried in the cemetery in Hertford.
JR: That’s a good photograph.
SB: It is a good photograph, if you want that for anything you can copy it.
JR: Maybe I can borrow it and copy it. I will bring it back.
SB: Yes of course. Its very precious, you can copy that.
JR: Yes. So isn’t it an involved story then?
SB: Oh its terribly involved, it obviously is that Peter Ruffles great great how many greats I don’t know and mine, well she is my great great grandmother. I think she would be Peter Ruffles’ great grandmother.
JR: great great?
SB: Great great grandmother, we both descended from the same…the story that Grace Law also told me she knew obviously, knew more all along but never said anything about it was that she was supposed to have been very refined, very well bought up and rather fancied herself she said she was told by somebody, I don’t know, because she seemed to be rather, she though herself a cut above the others but I don’t know how………that again is only hearsay. You know what I mean, but she may have been somebody who was fairly well to do somehow got in to this condition and fled. I mean it is the most extraordinary story.
What I never verified with Peter Ruffles is whether she got on, whether she got on the coach at Peterborough or whether it was the Peterborough coach which she picked up along the way. If you know what I mean.
JR: Yes I do.
SB: We don’t know, but apparently strangely enough two or three days after he told me this something I was listening to about the name Peterborough, they said oh the Seymour’s of Peterborough. Seymour is a name that is common to the area of Peterborough. But of course as I say if I can get her date of birth which I think maybe the only way I can ever get that is if it’s on her wedding certificate, you see they are, nowadays you have to put your date or birth on your marriage certificate but I don’t know whether they did in those days. The same thing with the death certificate, whether her date of birth would be on her death certificate, nowadays you have to, my mother had to give everything, but I don’t know if you had to give the date…
JR: You might have done in 1930 - that’s when she died wasn’t it?
SB: 1930. Yes I would think you would in 1930. I think you would.
JR: If she was 88 in 1930. I mean that can be worked out approximately can’t it.
SB: Yes, yes, but it’s quite extraordinary always my grandmother was talking about if only I had had a grandmother, they had such a desperately unhappy childhood you know it seems so terribly sad that there was a grandmother in close proximity that totally ignored them. Its quite unbelievable really.
JR: Yes, it’s the shame of it I suppose.
SB: Well of course I suppose so, but I always think, possibly, my great grandfather who I believe was a very narrow man, wouldn’t have allowed her, if he knew of her, to have seen his children. But she could have made contact when they were grown up. You know what I mean. My grandmother married very young at about 21 well she could have made contact then. It is very strange, it’s a most intriguing story, its one I would like to get to the bottom of and I would like to know if any of the Childs that are descended from her know anything about this and of course as I say I would love to see a photograph.
JR: Yes. Oh.
SB: My great grandmother had very beautiful golden hair and blue eyes, apparently was a very nice looking woman but she had this rather outstanding golden hair. You can’t see it in the photograph because its all taken back there.
JR: Yes. It is light though.
SB: But apparently it was a lovely colour.
JR: So what’s your next step on this one then?
SB: The next step is to go up to the records office and trace the marriage and the death certificate.
JR: Yes.
SB: That’s the only thing I can do and of course I have been waiting as I told you for this person to get in contact somebody who apparently - Mr Ron Childs of London Road Hertford Heath - I understand has got all the Childs family trees.
JR: Would he be a direct descendant of…
SB: That I don’t know because Daniel Childs, who Sarah married ,had several brothers, there are a lot, a tremendous amount of Childs so obviously its only the descendants of Daniel and Sarah would affect me.
JR: Yes.
SB: You know what I mean, obviously, I am not related at all to the Childs, only to Sarah. It would be very very interesting to know this.
JR: You don’t know how many children she had then?
SB: Five.
JR: Oh she had five from her marriage?
SB: I think Peter Ruffles told me five. I would have to check on that but I believe it was five. His maternal grandmother was a Miss Childs.
JR: Yes.
SB: It was obviously her grandmother I think, her father’s mother. Both of us great great grandchildren of Sarah Seymour.
JR: Yes.
SB: That’s the next step in the spring I will do the ….. don’t know about the date of birth I think I shall apply. Somebody said there is a Peterborough paper called the Peterborough Citizen. I shall have to write the story to the Peterborough Citizen and it’s a very….. I am so sad that I found it so late, I mean I found an old diary when I was searching like mad when I was 22. Its now 40 years later and 40 years ago there was people who would have been 90 odd who might have known the story.
I should think there must have been quite a sensation at the time in that time in that day and age
when a young 15 year old girl just vanishes into thin air. Somebody I was telling said oh this was the sort or thing that used to happen, people got hung for because they reckoned that they had murdered them, which you know is quite interesting you know. They said she could have had a boyfriend and he was accused of murdering her couldn’t prove that he hadn’t done so which is quite true. It is quite extraordinary but we will never find out who the great great grandfather is now I don’t suppose.
JR: No. No.
SB: Unfortunately, but there may be somebody, that’s why I don’t want to lose too much time. There may be somebody alive that remembers their grandmother or somebody talking about it you know. But if I had only discovered it 40 years ago it would have been so much better than now obviously because all this time’s been lost.
JR: Do you know this Mr Ron Childs at all?
SB: No I don’t.
JR: He would be the one to go and start with.
SB: I know somebody was going to go and do this for me.
JR: But you, if you find they are not doing it, could you go up and..
SB: Well I could one day. I could drag the bike up there.
JR: Well I mean….
SB: I could even ring him up I suppose.
JR: You could.
SB: I think somebody told me he was 78 I think.
JR: He might still be driving.
SB: Yes.
JR: Its not that far to go on the bus..
SB: You don’t know him do you?
JR: No. Peter probably does I think. I could ask there.
SB: Well apparently, he is the person who has got the whole of the Childs history. He is an expert on it. He has got all the …..what I would like, what I wish I could find is if anybody, great grandchildren have got a photograph of her because 1930 she died, well I mean photographs would have been taken. I mean that one of my great grandmother there was taken 2 years I think or a year before she died well she died in 1891 so it must be 1880s I suppose.
JR: Yes.
SB: I should think there would be a photograph of her somewhere.
JR: Yes even like today’s there would be one wouldn’t there.
SB: In her latter days there should be one. I mean she would have been getting on a bit, not that you can see a likeness.
JR: It’s something
SB: It’s something, its interesting to see.
JR: Yes.
SB: Very very interesting.
JR: Yes, oh well.
SB: It’s like a novel or something isn’t it! Some sort of romantic…well its not really romantic but it is an extraordinary story and when you relate it to 1857 and a young girl leaving home it’s quite extraordinary. My grandmother and her sister were such quiet and introverted women I can’t imagine. Grandmother must have had a wild streak in her I should think to have left home like that. When I think what could have happened I think it was absolutely providence she was taken off at Hertford Heath. Because I mean she could have gone to another town, who would have …… Mrs Childs took her in apparently and said “oh we will look after you” but she could have gone to another town and she would have been in the workhouse wouldn’t she, I think, she would have been taken to a workhouse.
JR: Yes.
SB: So she was really extremely lucky if you look at it like that wasn’t she. They are supposed to have lived in a house in Downfield Road for years and Peter Ruffles has a story about a window.
JR: Yes.
SB: Having something scratched on.
JR: Scratched, yes?
SB: Scratched on it a date or something. I can’t remember what the story is of that. Peter told me this two or three years ago now and I meant to follow it up. Yes of course it was because then what happened was, my mother… I came home and tried to tell my mother, I realised then how failing she was that was in the December, she was taken very ill in the February went in to hospital and died and it was all… she couldn’t seem to take it in and that was when I realised how frail her mind was going because I couldn’t seem to impress upon her, whereas normally she would have been very fascinated. It was really all through my mother passing at that time and all the troubles and dramas I have had since that I haven’t pursued it earlier.
But I really want to get a move on with it now and get the ends tied up and move on to Peterborough to try and find out…Whether any of the Childs family do know any more but I mean Peter Ruffles said apparently she wouldn’t speak of her past, she didn’t tell anybody about it. It would be fascinating to know.
JR: Yes, yes.
SB: You know what has happened about that.
JR: So that was her second family she wouldn’t speak .. and she obviously had the other child adopted or fostered?
SB: Fostered out.
JR: To Mrs Ginn.
SB: But you see …
JR: So no need to mention that to her second family, presumably her husband knew though.
SB: Oh her husband knew about it. I also do remember there was a Mr Childs, Charlie Childs he sung in the All Saints choir for years, his sister, I can’t remember her name now. Was she Winifred Charles I can’t remember. He said to me many years ago that he remembered many years ago going to tea with my grandmother and her sister and they were told that they were their cousins, and my grandmother also got rather indignant because some woman came up to her one day and said “Oh I am related to you” and my grandmother who was a bit stuck up said ”Oh she wouldn’t be related to that woman” you know she didn’t think she was the type she would be related to. She said “Who are you” she said “Oh I am so and so Childs from Hertford Heath and we are related, we are cousins” and she said “Nonsense I have got no relations Childs and Hertford Heath” she said “Oh yes I used to know you when your mother was alive and we used to visit you “ Well of course my grandmother couldn’t remember it so it sounded to me as if they were aware of my great grandmother existence they must have been if they visited her.
JR: Yes.
SB: This is what is very strange, there have been several incidences where …and I do remember Mr Childs saying they used to visit her when they were children.
JR: Yes.
SB: So it sounded to me that there was a link but this stopped of course after my great grandmother died. Then of course there was this second marriage.
JR: It sounds to me as if some people knew something?
SB: That’s what I think. I think the Childs knew more than my grandmother and her sister….
End of side one
Side Two
JR: Do you think the Childs, the original Mrs Childs who took Sarah Seymour in, do you think she might have put the word about later on in her life perhaps, after the …
SB: Possibly, possibly yes possibly.
JR: I mean her son married Sarah Seymour in full knowledge that she was already a mother.
SB: Yes oh yes she went to live there, you see, and had the child there, obviously she would have been born at the house, when she went there when she was 15, her (future) husband then would have been about 13. So she wouldn’t have married him for several years. If my aunt is correct in saying she believes she has heard that…. She did remember hearing from Grace Law that their grandmother went to Mrs Ginn when she was 7 then probably that was when her mother Sarah Seymour married Daniel Childs.
JR: I see.
SB: That’s when that would have been I should think. What… the story of what she did afterwards, how she came to Hertford and met my grandfather I don’t know anything about that at all. How that came about, I never did know that.
JR: Yes that’s a bit different isn’t it to putting the baby out at a few weeks old.
SB: Yes that is different.
JR: I mean the child never would have known the mother?
SB: No she never would have known her mother, if Grace Law was correct in this that she didn’t leave her till she was 7 then of course she knew her mother all along you see and would have her half siblings wouldn’t she you see, she would have known them all. So you see it was all kept from my aunt and, er, great aunt and grandmother. As I say from now I want to try and track it all down.
JR: Yes I think you have to leave it there for now don’t you.
SB: Yes I have to leave it now and then try and find a death certificate, for her, then her date of birth. Next year I shall try and track it down via a Peterborough paper. I think that will be the best thing to try and find her, whether we will, I mean its 100 and, heavens how long is it. 1857 .
JR: Well why don’t you try the census returns?
SB: Census returns?
JR: Yes say 1861 presumably Sarah Seymour would still have been living with Mrs Childs with her own daughter.
SB: She might have been, yes.
JR: If you try the census returns 1861, she would have been 4 wouldn’t she?
SB: She would have been. I have also thought of the christening, the child’s christening.
JR: You would then get a date, you would then get her, Sarah Seymour’s place of birth .
SB: Oh would you?
JR: Yes you will. She may be down as a servant or something but if she’s a lodger, but you should get her date of birth on that census.
SB: That,.. now where do I apply for that?
JR: County Record Office.
SB: County Record Office, Census returns 1861 did you say?
JR: Yes yes it may be in Local Studies, I am not sure, but they are next door to each other.
SB: Are they?
JR: You just phone them and ask them. I think its probably local studies which is next door but you
get a reader machine and you get a film that goes on, microfiche, and you can actually get a photocopy of that if you want it.
SB: Oh.
JR: About 20p I think, might be as well to do that I think.
SB: That would be a good idea, do you have to phone for an appointment?
JR: No you just phone to book a reader, often these readers, these machines are all occupied. You just ask to book a reader, they may ask you which part of the census you want.
SB: I will do that, I will do that.
JR: Yes.
SB: That’s a very good idea Jean.
JR: Well it might give you some…, if it’s nothing, at least you have tried haven’t you.
SB: Exactly tried, you would apply obviously for Hertford Heath.
JR: Yes oh yes.
SB: Everybody would have had to have filled it in wouldn’t they?
JR: Well if they were in their house on that evening when the enumerator came along, yes. She could have been out, you have to take a chance on that but most of them would have been in I should think.
SB: I should think they would, besides a child would be in I would imagine.
JR: If she wasn’t in the child, her daughter would have been.
SB: Yes she would have been, the child, not that we would learn a lot about that.
JR: It was everybody in the household that went on if they were in that night.
SB: I asked the Reverend Budd where the marriage would have taken place. I said oh you know have you got the marriages, he said the church wasn’t built till 1862 which amazed me.
JR: That’s right.
SB: I didn’t know that it was such a young church, I think it was 1862 or1867 I can’t remember but anyway I said where would she have married, he said it depends on which part of Hertford Heath she lived. It would be All Saints for certain areas, and Hertford Heath for others.
JR: Yes.
SB: Then of course you see the records, if she married in All Saints Hertford the records of All Saints Hertford at that period were burnt.
JR: Well.
SB: That was the old church that burnt down wasn’t it taking the records with it.
JR: Yes there may be spares, copies somewhere. Now how did your . I was going to ask this before but how did your family progress from there, your grandmother was, just check the name again, a Law wasn’t she?
SB: Yes she was Miss Annie Law.
JR: Her father had a business on Old Cross?
SB: Yes he was, they were originally pipe manufacturers, with his brother, they were *C and J Law pipe manufacturers of Old Cross. The he eventually went on his own, I think his brother emigrated, I may be wrong but he went on his own and there was a tobacconist shop there for year and years, iI is now Past Times of course. It is empty now of course but it became an antique shop. They were very friendly with the Wigginton family opposite. Of course originally, not now, but Wigginton’s was a ……
*Transcribers Note: Charles and James Law they must have come to Hertford from Wiltshire because their father had become the licensee of The Albion public house in Railway Place
JR: It’s just a name now.
SB: It’s just a name now. But it was run by the Wigginton family originally, they were great friends I remember. My grandmother was of course Charles and Annie Law’s daughter.
JR: Right yes, so your mother became Mrs Brown didn’t she, so what was her name then?
SB: Bone.
JR: Bone.
SB: My grandmother married Robert Langton Bone of Hertford.
JR: What did he do, did he have a profession or shop?
SB: Yes he was a master tailor they had tailoring, they were military tailors. He made all the uniforms for everybody in the first world war, and his brother, he was in partnership with his brother Reginald Bone, eventually broke away and became, he bought out Toddhouse Reynard in Norwich which was a very well known tailors but that’s another story. Then my mother Helen Bone she married my father who had come from Milford on sea in Hampshire. He was a farmer’s son, he didn’t like the farming profession and his father bought him a half share in a business in Hertford and he was Mr Brown of Quelch and Brown.
JR: Yes.
SB: Which is where Gaved’s now is of course
Transcribers Note: in 2018 it is Albany Radio in Fore Street
JR: What diD…can I just take one step back, where were the premises of the Bone family?
SB: Now where were they in Fore Street, there is a photograph, I have a photograph . Now he had originally, they were somewhere opposite my father’s shop, I will have to check this with my aunt, opposite my father’s shop.
JR: Somewhere near the Nat West bank?
SB: Where toys are us, somewhere where toys are us was, no, was it toys are us? It was a toy
shop. It’s closed now isn’t it?
Transcribers Note: In 2018 it is Saks hairdressers. Interestingly on the 1881 census Thomas Bone, tailor, appears to be in the premises and living above what later became Quelch and Brown!
JR: Yes.
SB: Well there was a toyshop, well he was somewhere there, his business was there. I know he also, he had more than one business in the town, one of them was up where the Bookworm eventually went to, the Bookworm in Hertford I think its called Cream now isn’t it?
JR: Yes. Yes.
SB: I think so he had a business there, and that’s about it really.
JR: Yes, I have got some thoughts on that which I don’t want to put on tape because I might be a bit out but I will tell you about it afterwards. Now Quelch and Brown what did they sell?
SB: They were bicycles, perambulators, wireless sets.
JR: Oh I see.
SB: Yes.
JR: Did you have any connection with the shop which is next to the present building site on Millbridge, Old Cross that area? Any connection with that?
SB: Which shop?
JR: It was either Russells or the next door one I can’t remember.
SB: Hugman’s.
JR: Ah right.
SB: Hugman’s the butchers which was next door to Laws the tobacconist. My great grandfather when this Annie Susan, the woman who all this story is about, when she died he later married Sarah the daughter of the pork butcher, they were pork butchers. He married her.
JR: Yes that’s the area, yes.
SB: That’s right.
JR: That’s right because not all the buildings are there now, they suffered bomb damage.
SB: That’s right I always understood that my great aunt’s shop that she took on after her grandfather died, after her father sorry, died, was listed. It was originally a flour mill and I understood 18th century but they have taken all the back down and all the lovely view of the river now has gone through these flats which seems appalling. Cause that’s very beautiful that river rushing along I think a beautiful view has been lost to Hertford through that.
JR: So what…. Did your father carry on with this Quelch and Brown business then for all his working life?
SB: Well he died tragically of a brain tumour a fortnight after his 58th birthday
JR: Oh.
SB: Yes, so that was the end of that.
JR: Who were the Quelch family then?
SB: Quelch came from Milford on sea too. He came up with my father from Milford on sea he had nothing to do down there. They came up on a motorbike I believe and had a look round for somewhere. I can’t quite remember the story, their shop was originally, somewhere in Mr Greens Leonard Green has got a photograph of it, it was somewhere where the Medlock fountain now stands it was situated there.
JR: In the middle?
SB: Yes in the middle.
JR: I see yes.
SB: In the middle there yes, which is rather interesting.
JR: Yes I will look that one up.
Transcriber’s Note; It was the Old Red Cow demolished 1926
SB: Yes, look that up.
JR: So are there any Quelch’s left in the town?
SB: No he didn’t have any children. His wife lived to quite a vast age I think about 96.
JR: Fanny? Was her name Fanny?
SB: Maud.
JR: Fanny Maud or?
SB: I know she was Maud, was there a Fanny? She lived at Abbeyfield.
JR: Yes again I am sure this is the same lady who signed Peter Ruffles nomination papers to be a councillor.
SB: Possibly.
JR: I thought he said it was Fanny Maud but perhaps it was only Maud.
Transcribers Note: She was Gertrude Maud nee Hanks born 6 December 1888 died 1987 so she was actually 99. She did indeed live in the Abbeyfield home in Queens Road at the end of her life but for many years they lived in Duncombe Road Bengeo. The couple had married in 1929 in Taunton Somerset.
SB: I only knew her as Maud, she may have been Fanny Maud.
JR: She was the wife of the partner.
SB: That’s right,
JR: Oh, small world.
SB: Yes it is isn’t it funny.
JR: Yes so perhaps we have got time now, yes we have, plenty of time, perhaps you would like to tell us a bit about this house and its history.
SB: Oh gosh this house, is just a disaster. Well in….my parents decided to move from over the shop in Fore Street that they had. They lived over the shop when I was born in Fore Street and its an extraordinary thing but in those days apparently, there weren’t many houses to buy, they were mostly to rent. Mostly let, and my father, there were several houses they wanted, but they just couldn’t get them they were quickly snapped up, couldn’t have taken them so the only one that was available was this large house up here, which had belonged to Mr George Pollard and his wife and they were Mr Pollard was considerably older than his wife his wife had lived on here I think with a couple of servants, when he pre deceased her by some years.
His wife, oh what was her Christian name now, Pollard, Clarissa? (Actually Clara) Oh I can’t remember the name now, had lived here, it had been an unhappy life apparently, they had a very strange marriage and I did hear, my mother was told many years afterwards by a woman who had been a housekeeper here that they only corresponded by leaving notes to each other on the table in the hall because she was a very, well, what’s the word I want, not pious but a very correct woman and he was a whiskey drinker and I believe he slept downstairs, here somewhere and she slept upstairs in the large old double bedroom and that was the miserable sort of life they had which sort of set, because her father who was a North London builder, Dear the name was of North London, he had built the house for them as a wedding present.
The house was 100 years old this year, in June 1896 the house was completed, its 100 years old. We came here in 1937 and my father said he didn’t intend staying here, they were going to move on, but I don’t know whether that was true or not because it seems strange to me that if they were going to move on why the ripped all the original fireplaces out which I think was such a terrible shame. The house of course was redecorated in 1937, well in 1942 a landmine fell in Tamworth Road, and it’s very strange because very little has been said about this landmine, you don’t read a lot about it, but there were several people killed and I think altogether, I don’t know if there was 3 or 5 and I know there was a Mrs Brett was killed because I knew her daughter Betty. Mrs Brett was killed and then there was a Mr Wright* and one of his daughters was killed and I know there was a little white dog which apparently belonged to Mrs Brett. My mother remembered … my mother remembered seeing Mrs Brett with this little white dog.
The house that was build on the site of that bombed house, several people to this very day including the occupants regularly see the ghost of this little white dog in the hall, sometimes see it going up the stairs. I know a woman who has seen it who didn’t believe in anything like that but she said she saw it very very clearly, it suddenly disappears you know which is rather interesting. Anyway this bomb, the wretched landmine, we had two enormous, Poplar trees at the bottom of the garden, a terrific height which of course the Pollards had planted. An ARP warden had seen this wretched landmine drifting along and he said it would have drifted over to Ware Park and would have exploded there only tragically one of the cords, these landmines apparently had cords dangling from them caught in the top of one of our Poplar trees. Bringing it down in a Tamworth Road garden, this was a very tragic thing, the two Poplar Trees blew down many years ago. I know when the last one blew down my mother said “Oh what a tragedy it had not blown down many years before” or even that they were planted at all. This house got a cross blast off this landmine and my mother had had a very strange feeling that night, as it was war I slept downstairs, we all slept downstairs, we slept in the drawing room at the back of the house. My mother had had a very very strong feeling after I was put to bed to get me up and take me down to the cellar. My father was cross he said, “Don’t disturb the child leave her where she is” but she said “No I am going to take her down into the cellar”.
When the landmine exploded the French windows were blown on to the bed I had been in all the glass was shattered over my bed. Many, all through the years she used to talk about this. Well of course the house was in an appalling state many of the original doors were blown off including these lovely French windows doors, the sheds blew down, the conservatory was shattered. This was in 1942, I think it was 42, yes 1942, I stand to be corrected there but I think it was. Well Norris the builders just put up temporary doors, rougher doors and they said after the war, of course apply for war damage and the house will be attended to. Well the war ended and my parents typically instead of getting on with things didn’t, they just kept putting it off and putting it off oh we will see to the war damage, we will see to the war damage. Well time was starting to run out and a Mr Lawrence who had a building yard in Talbot Street, where Hertford Glass now is (in 2018 houses are on the site)…
*Transcribers Note: Mr Wright was the grandfather of Ronald Wright well known local artist and life model.
JR: Yes.
SB: … stopped my mother one day and said “Look here you must get on with this Mrs Brown because you are going to lose your claim” and so she got a man down from…. he submitted all what needed doing. He spent hours, several days in the house, saying what needed to be done, a man came down from the war damage department in London, passed it all, there was going to be new sheds, Mr Lawrence had even got permission for, even to put a garage, though there had never been a garage they passed a garage and there was going to be a new conservatory, the house was going to be made very beautiful.
Well I believe it was a July that Mr Lawrence was going to start work, a fortnight before he was actually booked to start work on this house, my father went to the optician, he said his sight had been blurring slightly, so he went and visited an optician a Mr Main and Clement Clarkes. Well he rung my mother and said “Oh Mr Main wants me to take a letter to Dr Gregson-Williams. He is worried about my eyes”. So the next thing is that Dr Gregson-Williams said to my mother and says “Oh I have got to make an appointment for your husband to see Mr Penman the neurologist at the Atkinson Morley hospital in Wimbledon and I think you had better go with him”. So my mother said, you know “what’s the matter”. “Don’t worry” he said “I think it’s a lot of nonsense, I think Mr Main is talking a lot of nonsense, I am not taking any notice of him, but you better go with him”. Well my mother thought it was diabetes which is very badly in his mother’s family and I shall never ever forget it, it was a very hot summer evening, and I was sitting having a salad that my mother had left for me to eat, I remember so clearly, I had a lovely dog named Judy, a first cross dalmatian and black cocker spaniel, she looked like a pointer. She used to love to sit on the table, which she wasn’t allowed to, while I fed her, I remember I was so pleased because I had Judy up on the table feeding her. I shall never forget it, I heard the front door open and somebody in the hall shuffling about, well my mother always used to call out “Oh Oh it’s me” .
Well I was very nervous, I said “is that you Mum”, there was no answer so I called again, “is that you?” No answer, well eventually her outline appeared behind the glass doors in the kitchen and I said “Whatever’s the matter, why haven’t you spoken to me? What is the matter with you”. Then she flung the door open, she was a very highly strung woman at the best of times, she flung the door open, her eyes were on stalks, she looked completely mad and she just let out a piercing, endless, scream. Just one endless scream. Poor Judy the dog ran under the chair she didn’t know where to go, I nearly passed out I always remember I had the feeling that somebody had hit me on the back of the head, the shock. So I said “What is the matter, what is the matter” I think I was about 15 at the time, it was a appalling thing to have done to a young woman of about 14 or 15. She screamed “Daddy’s got to have a great growth taken out of the middle of his brain and he may
not live” Well the shock was so appalling I remember it to this day it was absolutely dreadful. Well what happens the next day, Mr Lawrence comes round to do some preliminary work to start this war damage…….so she said “ Oh no Mr Lawrence, cancel the war damage, I can’t cope with this my husband might die, can’t have all this”. Well Mr Lawrence stopped me in the street and said “Look here, you must talk to your mother about this, you must speak to her, because its very important the house is put right, even if anything happened to your Father its all the more important that it is put right, if he is going to come home a sick man its important and also its going to help take her mind off her husband, its going to help” But no she wouldn’t do it. Well my father did survive, but he came home, he had one or two strokes, he was a very sick man, he was ailing, he died in 1953, in December 1953, very shortly, about two or three weeks after his 58th birthday.
My mother went completely to pieces, she just had never been able to cope very well with life, she was even worse. Well just a year or two after this everybody said you have got to get on the War Damage Commission had published apparently that they were going to close all claims must go in. “Oh I’ll do it, I’ll do it” well of course she didn’t the one day somebody bought a cutting in to her and said “Look get on with it” they were just about to close. So she writes, she then applies, and they wrote back sending her a cheque for £200 sorry too late. Well that was the finish, she said “ I am finished with house, I have just finished with it” . The most tragic think is that today in 1996 this still has the same wallpaper on the walls that was put on it in 1937.
JR: Yes.
SB: There is dry rot in the cellar, the cellar ceiling is all coming down, I feel the whole floor is going to go through and there was an enormous mushroom apparently in the corner of the cellar and some man, she had had a man from Rentokil in, he knew me by sight and he said to me one day “What is your mother going to do there is the most appalling, the start of dry rot, and if we tackle it now we can stop it. What is she doing, it was months ago” She wouldn’t have him, she just said “ I can’t be bothered”. Because he said to her, I think it was absurd myself because it was only in the corner.
He told her that it would be better if she got out for a few weeks you see, well she wouldn’t have it done, I was very busy, I was working in London, I was worn out commuting, and she was such a, I mean overbearing, arrogant, bossy woman that I couldn’t even try to advise what to do, she wouldn’t listen to anybody, she knew, she just wouldn’t do anything to help. Well of course the end of it was she lived to, I remember an electric meter reader coming one day and he said to me this is an appalling thing and unless this old lady dies within the next year or so you have got a rot box on your hands. You have got to do something.
Well of course she was alive, she was 80 and she died at 91. So the house was completely finished and she did have somebody in about 2 years before she died, I said to her look I said to her come down, she said “I cant get down the stairs” so I said well it can’t go on, so she did agree for somebody to come and he quotes I don’t know it was £9,000 or something I can’t remember, but he said “you do realise this you have got to get out of the house, you must be out of it, we can’t work, its gone all into the walls, into the stairs, its creeping up the walls, we have got to get the walls out, gut the walls” Of course as soon as he said she was to get out that was the end , she said “I am not getting out of it” she was about 88, 89. She said “I am not getting out of my house” so she wouldn’t go, so of course she dies at 91 and I am left with a rot box which is completely, I mean I can’t do anything with this house now, it beyond cleaning, I mean it’s just, you dust and the next day there is 2 inches of dust, its crumbling, my next door but one neighbour the other day said of course there is going to be dust because the house is crumbling. There was a once beautiful garden with two mulberry trees, walnut tree, what was once a lovely Victorian garden, it’s gone, its like a jungle, I just call this house the “Hammer House of Horrors” think it’s so tragic and I …
Tape ends abruptly
Notes : Mrs Helen Brown died in 1994 two years before the recording was made, Susan Brown continued to live in the house and then moved to another house in Railway Street, Hertford and then to Suffolk where she died in March 2016. The house in Ware Road was sold in 2005 and has now been completely refurbished in to a beautiful modern home in keeping the Victorian exterior.