Biography:
Edward Birch
d. 23/09/1924
Edward Birch


in the cemetery
When Edward Birch was born in April 1843 in Chesham, his father, Charles, was 25 and his mother, Charlotte, was 21. He had 6 sisters and one brother.
Edward was a Wood Turner. He married Elizabeth Catlin in September 1872 in Amersham. Census records from 1871 – 1911 show Edward and Elizabeth living at Provident Place, Berkhamsted. Numbers 12, 13 and 158 during this time. Provident Place doesn’t exist anymore but neighbouring address recorded in Census is Holliday Street.
“Provident Place was formerly troubled by floods as well as fogs. To repeat an old music hall joke, there was a river at the bottom of the garden, and sometimes the garden was at the bottom of the river. To be more exact, floodwater from Holliday Street poured right through the houses into the gardens and so into the Bulbourne. Many householders kept stout boards which were placed before the front doors when there were heavy rains.” (P.C. Birtchnell, writing as Townsman in Berkhamsted Review, Mar 1972) courtesy of Berkhamsted Local History and Museum Society.
New Provident Place exists just off Holliday Street today.
Elizabeth was recorded as a Straw Plaiter in the 1881 Census. They had one child during their marriage – Rosa Minnie Birch born in Berkhamsted in 1874. (She married Albert Willmore in July 1897 in Berkhamsted and had three children. She died in 1946 aged 72 in Berkhamsted.
Edward died in September 1924 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, at the age of 81.
Relatives
No relatives have been linked to Edward Birch