spinsters and widows

The official website of New Forest Tourism

The Crown Hotel Lyndhurst, a New Forest Hotel

you well ask what on earth has this to do with genealogy ?

so read on:-

the only way an intelligent woman could have a career was by remaining
a spinster or being a long term widow

I have a couple of spinster Watkins sisters (after the elder was a
governess) opening their own school in Bridge Street Usk

Kelly's 1901 USK MON
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~familyalbum/kusk.htm

Watkins Eleanor & Isabell, (Misses), ladies' high school, Bridge street

Jones Edward, grocer, draper & wine & spirit merchant, & agent for the
Phoenix & Railway Passengers' Insurance Companies, Bridge street; & at
Raglan.
his son Vincent Edward Jones now has it in 1901

the shop was run by his widowed sister as agrocer and draper
until she bought and ran the Crown Hhotel in Lyndhurst, New Forest Hampshire
in 1901
Name: Mary Jones nee Jones
widow of James Jones 1837 Llanarth to between 1871 and 1881
Age: 62
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1839
Relation: Head
Gender: Female
Where born: Raglan, Monmouthshire, Wales

The Crown Hotel
High Street, Lyndhurst, Hampshire, SO43 7NF
http://www.crownhotel-lyndhurst.co.uk/
Our beautiful listed facade is unchanged since 1897.
with a brickmaker and builder - chemist and grocer John Jones - father
in Raglan I suspect she did the place up

another ended up an unmarried Post Mistress in Monmouthshire
her will showed she loved her cousins, Bliss Jones from Raglan , and
nephews and neices as her children (including £20 to me in about 1942
- which I never saw :-)
My father Alfred Henry Watkins of National Provincial bank Horsefair Birmingham then Solihull
was the executor of her will

In Bristol a letter kept by my maternal uncle Howard Bartley Lapham in
the possesion of my cousin Sue from his grandfather has finally
positively identified the Court Dressmaker in the family Ann Phipps Ball
born circa 5 Pitchcombe Glos near Stroud

but only 4 miles to walk to Gloucester where her brother Wiliam Thomas Stevens Ball born c 1831 started as an engine cleaner with the Vale of
Neath railway,
which was bought by the GWR and ended in Swindon driving the royal train
He died there Sept quarter 1901

in 1871 she is in Kensington working as a dressmaker
in 1881 she is listed as Ann Phipps Bale living at North Side 62
Lancaster Road as in her nephew Thomas Lapham's letter who
remembered visiitng her as a child
in 1891 in 2 Egerton Road Horfield lodger and needle woman not too far
from her sister Fanny Bartley Ball who married my g grandfather Alfred Lapham

(He married s Maud ?? when he was widowed after Oct 1920
palce and date ???
and I don't know the date of his death or where he was buried - yet)

His mother was the Waistcoat maker who lived long as a widow after her
Cutler Thomas Lapham * 1798 Bath, died young Jun quarter 1846 in
Bristol

which is why my Alfred LAPHAM and Alfred Thomas Lapham were in the rag trade
1851 1861 in Narrow Wine Street Bristol
1871 with two daughters all Vest Maker
1881 the three 2 Wilson Street Seamstress
1891 maintained by her two tailoress daughters at 5 Heron Road
who until a couple of months ago I thought was the court dressmaker
my LAPHAM grandfather told me about
when I asked him in about 1950 when I was a school boy boarding at Clifton College
"Any famous people in the family?"

the others were the engine driver "Gentleman" Ball

and "Pilot" Philip Evans who was a mariner like his father from
Swansea, but no record of his qualification as a pilot has been found -
the mariners list suggests he wasa a "Dock Pilot" moving vessels
around tthe Bristol docks and floating harbour near the pub he kept later.

In the LAPHAM one-name study a contribution from Josephine off list
sorted the career of Patience Lapham born c1823 in Bitton to a talented family
she worked as a servant and house keeper finally becoming a farmers
wife in 1865 by marrying widowed Jospeh Pruett 1816 - 1902
she died dec querter 1896

a "farmers wife" was a job:-
catering for the crew of "Ag Labs" cowmen ploughmen shepherds hedgers
and ditchers
engine drivers
running the dairy making and selling cheese and cream
manging poultry and eggs selling those at the weekly markets
the kitchen garden
managing, recruiting and training the female "Farm Servants"
training and putiing the children to work

see the discussion on:-
RootsWeb: BRISTOL_AND_DISTRICT-L [B&D] spinsters and bachelors
in
Browse the BRISTOL_AND_DISTRICT archives
to subscribe
RootsWeb: Genealogy Mailing Lists: England : BRISTOL_AND_DISTRICT