Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

William Harrowell was born in 1844 in Wigginton. His father was Phillip and his mother Ann. He was one of a very large tribe of Harrowells spread across Tring, Berkhamsted, Chesham and the villages around. William’s father was a journeyman carpenter and his mother, once her children had grown, worked as a straw plaiter.

William was brought up in Tring and initially worked as an agricultural labourer. According to his grandson Jim Harrowell, as related to the Berkhamsted Review in 1976, “one of William’s tasks as a young man was that of carting hay to London and returning with loads of soot which were added to local land to improve its texture and fertility.”

When William was 24 he married Lizzie Davies from Northchurch. Within three years they were living in New Road in Tring with their first two children and he had become a brick-maker. By 1881 the couple had moved to live at 44 Berkhamsted High Street and had six children. He was a man with a plan and that was to better himself. During the next ten years he made the change to being a builder employing other men in a company called William Harrowell & Sons. The sons in the title were Alfred and George.  During the existence of this company it constructed houses in Clarence Road, Cowper Road, Queens Road, Shrublands Road and a number of other streets around the south-west core of Berkhamsted. They made their own bricks in their two kilns, one in Cholesbury and one using the red clay found at Shootersway. This was at a time when there were many small brickmakers using the local clays and scattered around the Chilterns. In 2007 The Hospice of St Francis moved into their new premises built over the pit from which the Harrowells dug their clay.

Having built the house, William, Lizzie and their family then moved to 6, Clarence Road where they were living by 1901. Two of their adult sons were living with them, one working for William as a bricklayer and the other as an apprentice. They also still had a couple of younger children at school. Alfred, Charles and Frank had left home and started their own families but were still working with their father in the building business.

In 1903, fifty-four plots of freehold building land in Shrublands Avenue, a new street at the west end of Berkhamsted, were offered for sale for between £32 and £35. William Harrowell was one of the local builders who bought a number of these plots for development.

By 1911 the family had moved further down Clarence Road to No 12, another of the properties built by William. This one was on the end of the terrace and included a coach house at the side so was one of the better houses. He had even given it the name Clarence Cottage and incorporated the date 1897 into the frontage of the property.

Electoral rolls between 1903 and 1915 show William and his four sons Alfred, George, Charles and Albert owning up to nine houses in addition to the ones they were occupying. These were in Clarence Road, Charles Street, Montague Road, North Road, Cowper Road as well as five houses in Shrublands Avenue. Presumably, part of their business was as landlords.

The outbreak of WWI must have been very difficult for the business, as well as for the family. Alfred and George were too old to fight but Charles and Albert both joined up along with Frank and the youngest son James, now also working for the family firm. At the end of the war, only Charles and James returned. Albert died at Ypres in 1917 and Frank at Loos in the following year. So the band of six brothers working with their father was reduced to four. By 1918, at the age of 74, William had retired and Charles was the new head of the building firm.

William and Lizzie lived at 12 Clarence Road for the rest of their lives with their son George, who never married. Lizzie died at the end of 1925 and William seven years later, aged 87.  He is buried with his wife and George in Plot 757.