Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Elizabeth (Betty) Bates (755)

1892 –23/12/1929

Wife of Albert Bates; died at age of 34 years

Relatives

Harriet Lewis — other

• Melanie Hilton

755 Elizabeth (Betty) Bates (née Arden) (1892-1926)

From her age on her death certificate Betty was born in 1892, but no more information has been discovered about her until her marriage to Albert William Stanley Bates at St Peter’s, Berkhamsted on the 9th April 1917. Albert’s residence was given as Torwood, Torquay, she was “of Berkhamsted”.

In 1921 she was living with her widowed mother-in-law May Bates, her unmarried brothers-in-law, Frank and Robert, and Albert’s elderly grandmother, Harriet Lewis at 11, Chapel Street, Berkhamsted. Albert was a chauffeur with Dwight Bros., motor engineers.

Betty died 23rd December 1929 at what is now West Herts Hospital in Hemel Hempstead. She was only thirty four years old.

In 1956 her mother-in-law Harriet passed away and was laid to rest with her here.

Albert appears to have inherited 11, Chapel Street as he died there in 1971. His second wife, Olive, whom he married in 1939, is buried in plot 1064.

Harriet May Bates

03/05/1874 –28/02/1956

Originally from Redbourn, married Berkhamsted postman Joseph Bates

Relatives

Harriet Lewis — mother

• Melanie Hilton

Harriet May Bates (née Lewis) (1874-1956)

Harriet was born 3^rd May 1874 in Redbourn, Hertfordshire. She was the fourth child, and second daughter of Walter Lewis, watercress grower, and Harriet (née Payne). She seems to have been generally known as May, probably to avoid confusion with her mother and maternal grandmother.

William Payne, her maternal grandfather, was a watercress grower. A post on www.redbournvillage.org.uk explains the origins of the industry in the area which has strong similarities to the same trade in Berkhamsted. “ Watercress could have been growing wild in the streams of the area for hundreds of years as the river has just the right amount of flow, temperature and shallowness the plant requires. Growing on a larger commercial scale was encouraged by the proximity of Watling Street, allowing relatively quick access to the large London market and then by the arrival of the railway. William Payne, is the first recorded grower in the village, from the early 1860’s, until around 1890. He lived in ‘Watercress Hall’ the exact location of the building is unclear, but it was probably situated beside the Ver in the south of the village.”

In fact William was recorded as a watercress grower from as early as the 1841 census.

In the 1871 census Walter Lewis is shown married to Harriett, employed as a watercress planter and living with his in-laws. Walter was born in Chesham and in the 1861 census was working as a shoemaker. Whether he married Harriett Payne and decided to join her father’s business or whether he decided on a change of career and married his employer’s daughter is unknown.

At some point after May’s birth her father left the watercress business and by the 1881 census Walter Lewis was the licensee of the Punch Bowl inn which lies on the Redbourn Road (now A5183) halfway between Redbourn and St Albans. The inn dated back to at least the 17th century. The Redbourn village website [link above] says, “Before its sale by the Bowes Lyons family in 1897, it was described as having four bedrooms, a bar, bar parlour, tap room, kitchen, cellar and coalhouse. There was stabling for three horses, a coach house and a garden at the rear. There is no information as to the age or type of building.”

It was drastically (if not totally) rebuilt in 1901 and is now a private house.

May’s father died in 1882 and her grandfather William Payne had also passed away, as the 1891 census for Redbourn shows the two widows living together.

May’s mother Harriet Lewis had taken over as a watercress grower and her two sons, Walter and William were working with her. All four of her young daughters were also at home, living on Redbourn High Street. There is no mention of Watercress Hall.

May married Joseph Bates, a Berkhamsted postman and the son of a bootmaker, at All Saints church, Croxley Green on the 26^th August 1895. (He was 34, she was 21). She was living in Croxley Green at the time and was possibly in service there.

At the time of the 1901 census the Bates family were living at 11, Chapel Street, Berkhamsted. Joseph Bates was described as “town postman” and the household also included sons Albert William Stanley (born 1896) and Frank Cecil (b. 1897) and a male boarder.

They were still at the same address ten years later and Robert Gordon (b.1901), Edward (b.1905) and Winifred (b.1906) had joined the family. Joseph was still a postman, but died in 1917, aged fifty five.

In 1921 May was head of a household consisting of her sons Frank (a sales office clerk with William Cooper & Nephews, the sheep dip manufacturers); Robert (who had been working for John Dickinson & Co, but was described as an “out of work card packer”) and Albert (a chauffeur with Dwight Bros., motor engineers); Elizabeth (née Arden), Albert’s wife and May’s widowed mother Harriet Lewis, aged seventy five.

May’s sons seem to have been just too young to have been called up in the First World War, but the decade following the peace brought many losses to the Bates family. May’s younger sister Ellen (Nellie) and her husband Frederick Baker were running the Rose & Crown pub in Gossoms End, but Frederick died on the 29th December 1922 and Nellie survived him for only a few days, dying on the 15th January 1923. They were buried here in plot 764. May’s mother Harriet Lewis died 17^th December 1926 and was buried with them. Albert’s wife, May’s daughter-in-law Elizabeth, died in December 1929 and is laid to rest in this plot.

When the 1939 Register was taken May was living alone at 11, Chapel Street with the exception of  Henry J Morgan, a married man who was a carpenter. Presumably he was her lodger.

Harriet May died the 22nd August 1956 at the age of eighty two. Her son Albert appears to have inherited 11, Chapel Street as he died there in 1971. His second wife, Olive, is buried in plot 1064.