Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

ELIZABETH GREGORY; 1834 – 1917 Elizabeth was born on 12th December 1834. She was the third child born to John and Mary Duke. Elizabeth had an older brother, John, born in 1830 and a sister, Jane, born in 1832. A younger brother, Samuel, was to be born in 1835. The family lived in Tollerton in Nottinghamshire and her father was a gardener. She was baptised in St Peter’s church in Tollerton on 18th January 1835. The 1851 census reveals that at the age of 16 Elizabeth had entered domestic service and she and her older sister Jane, who was then 19, were working as house servants together with a third servant for the Wakefield Family. Samuel and Maria Wakefield lived in Beeston in Nottinghamshire and had three children. The census tells us that Samuel Wakefield was a proprietor of houses and railway shares. Work as a domestic servant was common for young women and girls during the Victorian era. By the time of the 1891 census 1.3 million women and girls were working as domestic servants. That is one in three women between the ages of 15 and 20. They were usually recruited between the ages of 10 and 13. Women were cheaper to employ than male servants as there was a tax on indoor male servants and pay for male servants was also greater than that paid to women. A servant working for a middleclass family would usually live in the family’s house. Hours were long and the pay was poor, £6 - £12 per annum. Servants were under the constant scrutiny and whilst living closely with the family were kept rigidly apart from it. Most employers felt they had a right to look through their servant’s belongings and it was not until 1860 that it became illegal to beat a servant. It was legal for employers to order servants to accompany them to church, but the servants had to sit at the back in a segregated section. There was no job security if a servant fell ill or committed some misdemeanour. Being a servant did have some advantages; a servant probably lived in better surroundings than her original home and some families were very good to their servants. By 1851, although Elizabeth remained in domestic service, both she and her sister Jane had moved on from the Wakefields and were working in an altogether grander establishment, that of the Hadden family at The Park in Nottingham. Jane was a house maid and nurse, Elizabeth a house maid. It was at The Park that Elizabeth met her future husband, Robert Gregory, who was also in service with the Haddens, working as a footman. When Charles Hadden bought the Rossway Estate just outside Berkhamsted in 1863, Robert had moved to Berkhamsted as butler for Charles Hadden and his family. The new house which Charles Hadden built at Rossway was completed early in 1866 and on 20th March that year Elizabeth and Robert married. The marriage was celebrated at St Peter’s church, Tollerton, the same church in which Elizabeth had been baptised 31 years earlier. When Charles Hadden had the new house at Rossway built the old house was demolished apart from the kitchen end of the building which was converted to provide Robert with a home. Elizabeth joined him and there gave birth to their daughters, Annie Edith, born in 1867 and Gertrude, born on 15th April 1869. It would appear from the 1871 census that following her marriage to Robert, Elizabeth did not continue in domestic service; whilst Robert’s occupation is noted in the census as that of butler, no occupation is noted against Elizabeth’s name. The family were still at Rossway at the time of the 1881 census. Elizabeth was then 45 years old and Annie (named as Edith in the census return) was 13 and Gertrude 11. Also living with the family was a sister in law, 62 year old Ann Duke. Three years later in 1884 the Haddens were to suffer a dramatic reversal in their fortunes. The coffee plantations in Ceylon upon which they depended for their fortunes were devastated by disease and the family could no longer afford to maintain Rossway. The property was leased and the servants, including Robert and his family, lost their positions and home. Robert and Elizabeth took a public house in London, the Falkland Arms. The 1891 census gives Robert’s occupation as “licenced victualler.” Gertrude is described in the census as “assistant.”  The family was additionally able to employ a barman and a domestic servant, both of whom also lived at the pub. The Falkland Arms is given as Robert’s address in the 1895 Post Office Directory, but by 1899 Robert had left the Falkland Arms and retired to Berkhamsted. Robert had made sufficient money to buy a substantial property in Kings Road, Falkland House, where he, together with Elizabeth and Gertrude and Annie Edith, were living at the time of the 1901 census. The family was sufficiently well-to-do to be able to employ a 19 year old general servant girl who also lived at the house. In 1911 Annie and Gertrude were still spinsters and living with Robert and Elizabeth at Falkland House. The family was then employing two domestic servants. Gertrude was to die in 1913 and was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery. Robert died aged 77 years on 7th April 1916 and was buried in the same plot as Gertrude. Just over one year later, on 30th October 1917, Elizabeth herself was to die. She too was laid to rest with her daughter Gertrude and husband, Robert.