An article, taken from the Somerset Guardian of 23^rd December 1927, perfectly illustrates the conditions and life-style of a family living in Timsbury between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:-

Mr. And Mrs. Henry Harris, of Bloomfield, Timsbury, will on Sunday next (Christmas day), celebrate their "Radium" Wedding, having been married 70 years ago, at the Parish Church of St. Mary’s, Timsbury, by the Rev. Richard Hill, M. A. , on December 25^th. 1857.  They are both nearing 90 years of age. Until a few months ago the venerable couple enjoyed good health, but of late Mrs. Harris has been an invalid.

Mr. Harris was born at Timsbury in the year 1839, and has never lived out of the parish. Mrs. Harris, whose maiden name was Charlotte Bridges, was born in the adjoining parish of Farmborough, but was brought to Timsbury when quite a little girl, and has lived there practically all her life. Mr. Henry Harris had two brothers and three sisters, and all but one are living still. The eldest brother, Mr. Job Harris resides at Wellington, Co. Durham, and the youngest, Mr. Moses Harris, lives at Farmborough. The three sisters are Mrs. Joyce Amesbury, of Timsbury, who died six months ago; Mrs. Hulbert, of Bath; and Mrs. Clara Tyte, of Timsbury.

Mrs. Harris was one of a family of eight children born to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bridges, also a Timsbury family, but she is the only survivor of eight.

There were six children of the marriage of Mr. And Mrs. Henry Harris – three sons and three daughters – and all are still living. The eldest daughter, Miss Anna Maria Harris is a permanent invalid, and resides at home. The second daughter, Mrs. Laura Searle, is the wife of Mr. Robert Searle of Timsbury. The youngest daughter, Sarah Jane, resides in South Wales. The eldest son, Mr. George Harris, of Stanley Terrace, Radstock, is 68 years of age; Mr. Henry Harris, of Bristol, 66, is the second son; and the youngest son, Mr. John Harris, 60, resides at Towlaw, Co. Durham.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Harris have 26 grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren.

The aged couple has led lives of wonderful activity and both had to work hard to bring up their family of six children in the days of low wages and high prices.

Mr. Harris started work when eight years old, at the old Hayeswood Colliery, Timsbury; where he was employed until the colliery was flooded out many years ago. The relics of the old colliery premises can still be seen adjoining the main road between Timsbury and High Littleton. After a period of apprenticeship at shoe making with Mr. Fear, of Timsbury, Mr. Harris was employed as a sawyer at Timsbury Colliery. In a similar capacity he worked for eleven years in the yard at Radstock Collieries, walking the nine miles between his home and work every day in all winds and weathers. An opportunity occurred for him to go back to his old job at Timsbury, which he did, and here he finished up a life of hard toil of 72 years’ when nearly 80 years of age. For the most of his life the working day consisted of 12 hours or more, which did not give him much time to attend to private affairs.

For many years Mr. Harris cultivated 35 perches of allotment garden, in addition to a large cottage garden, so as to provide the greater part of the food for the home. Upon scores of occasions he has been seen working in his garden at night with the aid of moonlight, and the winter evenings he occupied his time when at home in repairing boots, so as to earn money to help maintain the home.

His wages at Timsbury were only 14 shillings per week, but when at Radstock he received 15 shillings per week, and for this he walked nine miles per day, and stood on his feet all day long at his work. Being promoted to a more responsible post, his wages at Radstock were increased to 19 shillings per week, and for a week or two he actually received 20 shillings per week, but at no period of his 72 years work did his wages exceed 20 shillings per week.

In their earlier married career, apart from what was earned independent of the husband’s wages at his employment at 12 hours per day, Mr. and Mrs. Harris maintained a household of eight on 14 shillings per week, which averaged 1s. 9d. per week, per member in the family, or exactly 3d. per day. From this, rent, clothes, boots, food etc., had to be found. Whilst Mr. Harris toiled in his garden, Mrs. Harris for many years baked bread and sold it, in addition to turning her hand to other things in order to help supplement the meagre income of the home.

During the many years the Primitive Methodist connection had a Chapel at Timsbury, Mr. Harris was one of the trustees, and both he and his wife were teachers in the Sunday School. Both Mr. and Mrs. Harris are now in receipt of the old age pension of 10s. per week, and the combined sums are more than Mr. Harris received as wages at any period when he was bringing up his family of three sons and three daughters.

Although the Conygre Collieries accident was a terrible shock for the village of Timsbury, there was a more severe disaster in the village, at Hayeswood Colliery, almost 50 years to the day previously, when seven men and four boys were drowned when the pit flooded on the 4^th.February 1845. Two weeks earlier, seven men were injured at the same colliery, by being drawn over the winding wheel, due to carelessness. A similar accident happened at the Withy Mills Colliery in the same manner, when the winding man was drunk on duty, and several miners were killed by being wound over the wheel. This occurred in the 1850’s and the winding man was jailed for two years.

Coal mining in Timsbury ceased in 1916, with the closure of upper Conygre due to encountering major geological faults; Lower Conygre had closed in 1914 when it was flooded out. Little remains of these once busy pits except their spoil heaps and concrete shaft caps.

Notes:

In 1851, Henry was aged 11, living at Bloomfield, Timsbury with his parents, John, a coalminer and Ann, plus three siblings. Charlotte Bridges was living nearby with her parents Samuel, also a coalminer, and Mary, plus 7 siblings. The move from Farmborough was the only one she ever made throughout her long life.

Mr. & Mrs. Harris are listed in the censuses 1861 to 1911 at Timsbury. In the latter census Mr. Harris was still at work, as a “sawyer at colliery” at the age of 71. In the census of 1871, their son George, then aged 12, was working as a coalminer.

Charlotte died aged 89 in 1928 and Henry aged 93 in 1932.

The story of the Hayeswood disaster of February 1845 appears in my book “Killed in a Coalpit, Volume 2, The Mines of Mendip.” Those killed were John Flower (52), George Palmer (41), John Carter, (widower, 2 children), Joseph Gullick, (leaving 3 children and a pregnant wife), Daniel Pickford, (a wife and 2 children), William Cleaver (leaving a wife and 6 children two of whom worked in the same mine) James Evans (wife & 2 children) Mark Brice, George Lewis, John Collins, William Walter (boys between 14 & 16).

The earlier accident was on 23^rd January 1845 but I have been unable to find specific details of the casualties. The Conygre colliery was flooded in 1914 which led to its closure.

In response to my blog of 1st August “Barry Turton” in which I mentioned the pantomime at Bristol South Baths and one of the numbers, "Open the Door, Richard" Giles Oakley has contacted me with the history of this song which I recall from the 1950s but in fact goes much further back.

Giles says it is “an old African American vaudeville comedy routine from the mid-1930s created by a man called John 'Spider Bruce' Mason, later turned into a hit record by Dusty Fletcher in the '40s. It was one of the biggest hits of the era, covered by many different jazz and rhythm & blues artists, becoming so popular at one point in February/March 1947 no less than five versions of it were in the 'Billboard' Race Records charts simultaneously, including Fletcher's original together with brilliant versions by Jack McVea, Count Basie, the Three Flames and Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five. I would guess that it was the latter recording that made the biggest impact in Britain since Jordan, the biggest selling black artist in the USA in the '40s, had several of his humourous 'jump blues' recordings issued here. (I was amazed to find one of his Decca 78s amongst my grandmother's classical music collection in the 60s).  The alto-sax playing Jordan was also very popular in the Caribbean and perhaps West Indians settling in Bristol spread the word. I would imagine that Bristol as a a port city was where many American records entered the UK, brought in by sailors in exactly the same way as happened in Liverpool, as attested by John Lennon and many others.

“I had no idea I'd get onto such a topic when I entered your site, my interest being based on family history. My mother's family, nee Martin, came from Bristol in the 19th/early 20th century, and before that an Oakley ancestor owned Pen Park House in the 1830s.”

Giles’ account intrigued me, as did his Bristol connection. Of course, I had no option but to look for the Oakley ancestor! Pen Park, the mansion house was an imposing Georgian pile in extensive grounds built mid to late 18th century at the end of Charlton Road near Westbury on Trym. The house was burnt in 1961 and again in 1964. It was finally demolished in 1969 and a photograph of the frontage is in Reece Winstone's “Bristol as it was: 1960-2. The name lives on in Pen Park Road and (of course) Pen Park Hole! This cavern boasts the earliest caving fatality in Great Britain and Ireland, one Thomas Newman, who on March 17, 1775 fell to his death whilst trying to plumb its depth.

Major P.J.R. Waller, MBE, DL, JP in a letter to the Western Daily Press on May 30, 1956 says “it might amuse you to know that the oldest house near the traffic lights at the Southmead end of Pen Park Road was an isolated gamekeeper’s cottage in my father’s boyhood. I myself shot partridges close by. Also one walked to church in Henbury down country lanes in the 1940s. My great great grandfather was an ironmaster and owned the Eagle Steel Works in Bristol” (another story for investigation perhaps?) “and in the 1850s or so decided to become a country gentleman. He sold the steelworks and bought Pen Park.  All that is identifiable now is a Wellingtonia tree. I have childhood memories of cider making, hay making, an old home with no electric lights ever” (so do I – it was next door to where I lived as a child in Victoria Park, Kingswood!) “and well water until 1937 and very primitive sewage arrangements. Yet in the 1850s an enormous amount of money had been spent and it was the acme of luxury.” 

The Oakley dwelling had been advertised for sale in June 1841, and in response to this information, Giles emailed again attaching more details and a rough copy of the will of his ancestor, Richard Oakley of Pen Park. Richard was…….

…….“the (much richer) older brother of my Great Great Great Grandfather George Oakeley, a yeoman farmer who seems to have emigrated at some unknown date and fallen on hard times in Nova Scotia ('my poor afflicted brother...' named in a codicil of his will dated  March 23, 1832) Richard was born and buried in Wigmore in Herefordshire. How he came by Pen Park isn't clear, possibly by marriage. His first wife, perhaps a Frances Banner, died (in childbirth?) and he then married Mary Banner in 1810, presumably a sister or cousin. There is a memorial to Richard in Wigmore church put up by his widow, Mary. I have never quite sorted out all the relationships, which straddle across into Lambeth in London and Kent as well as Herefordshire and Bristol. What adds to the confusion is that there is more than one Richard Oakley around at that time.”

“I inherited a lovely Roman intaglio ring via my father and great aunt which originally belonged to Richard. It's setting is Georgian, but the engraved image is of the Goddess Hope, an early Christian symbol, as in 'Faith , Hope and Charity'.”

The idea that Richard Oakley married two sisters is possible but unlikely. Marriage to a deceased wife’s sister was within the “prohibited degrees” and not permissible in Canon Law up to 1907.  Until 1835 such marriages were not void but could be voided by legal action and any one likely to be found out would be reluctant to take the chance. It appears that Richard’s first marriage which has not yet been found was either to a Frances Swayne or Frances Banner. There were five children of the marriage of whom only one daughter and a son, Edward Banner, survived. Richard’s first wife died giving birth to Edward and the boy’s second Christian name suggests that if she was not a Banner, at least she was connected to the Banner family. Richard’s second marriage to Mary Banner of Broadstairs took place on the Isle of Thanet in 1810. In a newspaper announcement he is described as a solicitor.

It maybe that Richard and Mary Oakley moved into Pen Park following the death, announced in the Bristol Mercury on March 8, 1819,  of John Lambert, esquire. This gentleman, described as “formerly of Pen Park, Gloucestershire”, was a retired solicitor who died at his lodging in North Parade, Bath. Alas the famous waters could not save him,  but at the age of 81, he had had, certainly for those times, “a good innings” as my Dad would have said.  Mr Lambert’s chief claim to fame was that “he was master to the unfortunate Chatterton.” Thomas Chatterton

He was evidently the attorney to whom Chatterton was apprenticed aged 14 in 1766 and the above is said to be a likeness of the young Chatterton. In the famous “dead” portrait of the poet by Henry Wallis, the model was the actor George Meredith.

As to Richard Oakley, he was living at Pen Park when the marriage of his only daughter Frances to Dr Robert H. Graham of Bath by the Rev Carrow MA took place at Westbury on Trym on September 18, 1827. It was announced in the press a few days later.

We can perhaps deduce that even at that stage Richard did not altogether approve of the match, though maybe gritted his teeth and smiled for show. By the time he made his will, 17th March the following year, it is clear that all was not well. He did not care at all for his son in law and the substantial sum left to Frances by way of annuity was “ not to be subject to his (Doctor Graham’s) debts, control or interference.” Graham was provided for however with a life interest should he survive Frances. The business of Frances’ inheritance took up much of the testament so that the other items almost seem tacked on: a bequest to his son, Edward Banner Oakley when he should reach the age of 26; mention of his “excellent and dearly loved wife” who had been “amply provided for under a will of Mrs Thompson”; his sister Elizabeth and brother in law Benjamin Hills whose children, Richard’s nephews and nieces, unnamed, were to be rewarded with 10 guineas each.

With the drafting of the will approved,  the scribe put down his quill,  the lawyer waited and his satisfied client rang a bell summoning three members of staff waiting patiently, even apprehensively, in the corridor. John Ham, the footman, Philip Mears, the coachman, and Elizabeth Ackland, a housemaid, all dutifully bowed or bobbed, signed as witnesses and the business was complete. It is nice to catch this glimpse of the below stairs staff at Pen Park in this way.

By July 24, 1828, relations between father in law and son in law had deteriorated further. Richard Oakley felt obliged to add a codicil to his will.

“in consequence of the unworthy treatment my daughter has received at the hands of Dr Graham I do hereby revoke the bequest of a life estate interest in the event of his surviving my daughter and revoke power of appointment given him amongst the children of their marriage and entirely exclude (him) from any meddling in my affairs.”

It  would be interesting to know whether Robert Graham was the villain he seems. Whatever “the truth” a son and daughter Joanna and Gerald were born of the marriage. The son, Gerald Graham won the VC in the Crimean War!

Following the worry about his daughter’s happiness, Richard seems to have found solace in gardening. At the Bristol Horticultural Show in June 1829 he won second prize for his grapes and went even better in August the same year, being placed first for his artichokes.

Richard died at Wigmore, Herefordshire on November 17, 1832, though he is stated in the Gentleman’s Magazine notice to be of Pen Park, near Bristol.  There is a memorial plaque at Wigmore erected by his widow Mary who died July 3, 1838 at Oswaldkirk, Yorkshire.

A Thomas Cobham esquire was living at Pen Park on December 29, 1838 when the birth of his daughter was announced. Sadly, this baby, Blanche Elizabeth died aged 10 months in November 1839. The birth of another daughter was announced on July 11, 1840.  Thomas Cobham did not stay long. He moved with his family to Devon and Pen Park was put up for sale in 1841.

The above is merely a summary of the genealogy of the Oakley family and their connection to Pen Park. If anyone is related to this family which belongs to Wigmore, Lambeth as well as Pen Park, Bristol I will be pleased to pass on further information.

Some years ago I found a number of  bottles in what I believe was at one time a rubbish tip in Brislington. For the present I am not divulging the whereabouts of the site in the hope that I can have a proper dig one day soon, now that I am retired (! Ha! I seem to have more to do than ever!) They are all fairly small and some have glass stoppers. Two are green, ink bottles, I think, and several others, all clear glass,  have embossed writing: i.e.

Grossmith & Son, Perfumers, London; (obvious)

Pascall, London, (who I think manufactured sweets)

Eiffel Tower Lemonade, Foster Clark Ltd, Maidstone 

Bisurated Magnesia, Bismac Ltd, London; (Indigestion!)

Edwards' "Uzon" Brilliantine; (remember antimacassars?)

Langdale's Cinnamon.(a herbal remedy, still going strong.)

Judging from my very basic research, I think they were made in the 1920s. I have informed Brislington Archaeology Society and I hope that soon they will be professionally photographed for the Society’s on-line museum. Watch this space.