Every cloud has one they say. Following the “demo” on 18th August my granddaughter and I went to the meeting at The Pilgrim. En route I met Heidi of Milbanke Close, with her children. She is one of the organisers and I thanked her and promised support to Protect Brislington’s Green Spaces.  At the pub we signed the petitions. Not that petitions do much good from my experience of working for a Member of Parliament.

The Pilgrim has Pillinger connections – the widowed Maria Pillinger (her husband was accidentally killed on Brislington Hill) was landlady there in the middle of the 19th century.

In the pub, I struck up a conversation with a kindred spirit, Jill Jacobs. Much to my surprise, after such a brief acquaintance, Jill thrust a sheaf of old photos into my hand and said she would trust them with me, until we should meet again.  I must have an honest face.

The photos were of the Burt family who lived in Brislington at the turn of the 20th century. I scanned the photos – see below. The family groups, Bob & Agnes Burt and their children were dated 1914 and 1905, making them ideal for census investigation.

In 1911, the family is listed as follows:

Robert Burt, head, married 36, bricklayer, born Bristol

Agnes Burt, wife, 37, born Wellington, Somerset, and their children:

Elsie, 14, scholar, born Taunton, Clifford, 13, scholar, born Taunton, Hilda, 11, scholar, born Taunton, Gladys, 10, scholar, born Bristol and Ivy, 8, born Bristol.

And here’s the surprise. They were living at Nelson’s Glory, Brislington. So what, you may say. Readers of The History of the Pillinger Family, Part 2, will know that Nelson’s Glory, in the 1820s was the abode of Henry Pillinger and his family! Synchronicity, or what?

So there we have Maria, the landlady of the Pilgrim and Henry at Nelson’s Glory, not to forget Julia from Bath in a previous post, I can’t help thinking that they’re all upstairs holding a Pillinger symposium to which they are trying to invite me. Not yet, I earnestly hope.

The following are the photographs of the Burt family:

In 1905: Mother : Agnes Burt. Father: Bob Burt

children from left to right Hilda, Ivy, Elsie, Gladys, Clifford.

In September, 1914:

Mother: Agnes Burt; Father Bob Burt and in between, Lena, the latest arrival.

adult children, from left to right: Hilda, Elsie, Cliff, Gladys, Ivy

Gladys Burt in 1922, with unnamed boy friend at Poplar House, School Road,  Brislington.

Bob Burt, 1935 at Poplar House.

Agnes Burt, with “Bob” – a grandson? and John Evans also at Poplar House

Agnes & the family dog, what a shame we don’t know its name.

Robert Burt married Agnes Thorne in 1897 at Wellington and by 1901 they were living at 34 Sandgate Road, Brislington. As a bricklayer, perhaps Bob had a hand in the building of these new houses. It must have been a recent move for as we have seen their children, aged 3, 2 & 1, Elsie, Clifford and Hilda, had all been born in Taunton.

In 1891 Robert, then about 14, was living at Road, Stoke St Mary, Taunton with his elder brother Albert (18) and widowed mother Sarah, aged 44. Though the two boys had been born in Bristol, Sarah’s birthplace was Old Cleeve in Somerset. Robert and Albert were the sons of Sarah’s marriage to Robert Burt and she had a previous son, William Tarr, born 1863.  Robert senior died in 1876, the same year that his son and namesake was born.  In 1881, Sarah, then 36, was living at 14 Kenilworth Terrace, St Philips, and working as a charwoman. Two of her sons were with her, William Tarr, aged 18, (a porter in a printing office who was born at Washford in Somerset) and young Robert, a scholar of five. Brother Albert, aged seven was staying at the time of the census with his paternal grandmother, Mary Ann Burt, aged 60, a widow, who was farming at Thurlbear in Somerset, assisted by her son, Andrew Burt.

In 1871, young William Tarr, aged seven, was a boarder at a house at St Decumans, Highbridge, belonging to a Sarah Sully, aged 68. Among other boarders was a John Burt, a freestone sawyer, born Montacute, but without further research I cannot say whether John Burt and Robert Burt senior were related or if this was simply coincidence.  Meanwhile, Robert, senior, 21, was living on his father’s farm, Netherclay, Thurlbear with six brothers and sisters. His father, Worthy Burt, born about 1823 married Mary Ann Williams at Taunton in 1847. Her father, Robert Williams, an “Ag lab” born 1789 was living with the family in 1871.  I have yet to establish with any certainty the whereabouts of Sarah Burt, formerly Tarr in 1871.  

In order to find more about Agnes Thorne, I would need her marriage certificate to discover her father’s name. So far, census searches have proved inconclusive.