Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

John Bunn

27/09/1790 –07/08/1847

Father of 8, timber carrier, died of chronic pneumonia

Relatives

Sarah Bunn — wife

Joseph Bunn — son

• Christopher Dolton

JOHN BUNN; 1790-1847

John was born in Berkhamsted on 27th September 1790 and baptised in St Peter’s church on 15th November that year. His parents were Josiah and Frances Bunn.

John married Sarah Putnam, who was also born in Berkhamsted, on 14th March 1814. John and Sarah had eight children, the oldest being James who was born in 1815. In 1817 Sarah next gave birth to two boys, William and Joseph. Whilst we don’t have William’s exact date of birth, we do know from his memorial that Joseph was born on 13th June 1817 and it looks like the two boys must have been twins. William was baptised on 20th July 1817, a week before Joseph was baptised on 27th July. Sadly, William died shortly after and was buried on 3rd August 1817 in St Peter’s churchyard.

Following William’s death, Sarah gave birth to another son in 1819, who was also named William. Thomas followed in late 1826 and was baptised on 31st December that year. Like William he too died soon after he was born and was buried at St Peter’s on 20th January 1827. Elizabeth, the couple’s first daughter, was born in 1828, Eliza in 1830, Emma in 1832 and finally the youngest, Edith, was born in 1836.

We know from the 1841 census that the Bunn family was then living in Berkhamsted’s High Street. Joseph, then 24 years of age, was not present with the family when the census was taken.

John’s occupation is noted as that of “carrier”. Carriers, carmen, or carters as they were also known, carried goods and produce and also the cheaper class of passenger from place to place. John was not however a carrier of general goods; his wife Sarah died in 1874 and she is described on the certificate as the “widow of John Bunn a timber carrier.”

From its early days Berkhamsted made use of the good supplies of surrounding timber and the town saw an expansion of the wood working industry in the 19th century. There had been small scale wood workers in the town for centuries, but the industry expanded substantially after Job East moved from Chesham in the 1840 and took over a small shovel maker and wood turner’s business.   With the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853, East won contracts to supply the army with lance poles, artillery rammers, shaving bowls, tent pegs and poles and the business grew from employing 10 men to nearly 100. William Key founded another timber yard, which subsequently became J Alsford Ltd. By 1880 these and other smaller businesses employed over 200 men and yet others worked as coach builders and boat builders. The timber that kept these businesses going needed to be transported from where it was felled to the yards in the town where it was trimmed and cut. John made his living transporting that timber.

Unfortunately, John Bunn did not live a long life. His death certificate reveals that he died on the 7th August 1847 at the age of 57 of chronic pneumonia. Unlike his son William, who had been buried in the old churchyard at St Peter’s, John was buried in Rectory Lane cemetery which had been opened in 1842, five years before his death.

Sarah Bunn

07/11/1790 –08/06/1874

Mother of 8, strawplaiter. Laundress & had lodgers when widowed. Moved to Camberwell but died here.

Relatives

John Bunn — husband

• Christopher Dolton

SARAH BUNN: 1790 – 1874
Sarah was born in Northchurch on 7th November 1790 and baptised at St Mary’s church. She was the daughter of Joseph and Joanna Putnam.  She married John Bunn on the 14th March 1814.

John and Sarah had eight children, the oldest being James who was born in 1815. In 1817 Sarah next gave birth to two boys, William and Joseph. We don’t have William’s exact date of birth, but we do know from his memorial that Joseph was born on 13th June 1817 and it appears that the two boys must have been twins. William was baptised on 20th July 1817, a week before Joseph who was baptised on 27th July. William died shortly after and was buried on 3rd August 1817 in St Peter’s churchyard.

Following William’s death, Sarah gave birth to another son in 1819, who was also named William. Thomas followed in late 1826 and was baptised on 31st December that year. Like William he too died soon after he was born and was buried at St Peter’s on 20th January 1827. Elizabeth, the couple’s first daughter, was born in 1828, Eliza in 1830, Emma in 1832 and finally the youngest, Edith, was born in 1836.

We know from the 1841 census that the Bunn family was living in Berkhamsted’s High Street. Sarah was then 50 years of age and her occupation was straw plaiter. Straw-plaiting was a profitable cottage industry for women and girls in Victorian times, supplying plaited straw to the hat makers of Luton and Dunstable. The craft was passed on from generation to generation and children were sent to dame schools to learn the craft. Children started straw plaiting at the age of 5. The work was well paid, “...it was a profitable occupation and in the first half of the 19th century many women and children earned more than men who laboured in the fields. A good hand at Berkhamsted could earn about 15s a week – then a handsome wage-… Farmers complained that straw plaiting “did mischief, making the poor saucy, rendering the women adverse to husbandry and causing a dearth of indoor servants and field labourers”

John died of pneumonia in 1847 and was buried in Rectory Lane cemetery where he was joined by their son Joseph when he died three years later in 1850.

In 1851 the widowed Sarah was still living in Berkhamsted’s High Street. Sarah was no longer plaiting straw but at the age of 61 had taken up work as a launderess.
Like so many Victorian occupations, the work was long and arduous.  Graham Barker, describes the work of a Victorian launderess in “Trading stories; Working Lives.” : “As Judith Flanders sets out in ‘The Victorian House’, laundry was an expensive business for the middle classes; a laundress was hired to come in by the day or the washing was sent out, though ‘sending out’ brought with it concerns over the ‘promiscuous’ mixing of clothes. The aspirations of the growing middle class – who believed “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” – helped to keep laundry workers busy. In advance of the wash, clothes needed to be sorted and soaked overnight:  “Sheets, towels, men’s collars, linen, underwear, men’s shirts, nightclothes, aprons, petticoats and nappies were separated; then fine muslins; coloured cottons and linens; woollens; delicate items like women’s collars and cuffs, decorative handkerchiefs, and babies’ best dresses; and finally very dirty items such as kitchen cloths, household dusters, and cloths used to clean our chamber pots.” Come the morning of wash day, a large copper holding about 20 gallons of water was heated over the scullery fire; warm water was ladled out as needed into wooden washtubs – or later into basic washing machines – and a dolly or possing stick was used to agitate the dirt out. Victorian laundresses didn’t have detergents, but laundry soap was shaved and dissolved in boiling water to form a jelly that could be rubbed through the wash. Amongst the more enterprising manufacturers was Harper Twelvetrees who promoted his penny packets of soap powder in the 1860s with characters Mrs Scrubwell and Mrs Thrifty. Soaps had a tendency to turn whites yellow, so ‘laundry blue’ was used to counteract this. Dyed fabrics had to be treated separately, with different additives to protect them: “mauves and violets needed soda; dark green was maintained with alum or vinegar; blue by salt; brown and grey by ox-gall, bought from the butcher,” explains Flanders. After rinsing, clothes had to be wrung (to remove water), mangled (smoothed dry) and hung outside to dry. If the weather – or odours from local factories, sewers, or pigs – precluded outdoor drying then clothes were drip dried inside from ceiling-mounted rails and lines. A glutinous starch mix was applied to stiffen men’s shirts, collars, and frilled caps and petticoats, before ironing. Flat irons were used in pairs – one sat on the range, whilst the other was in use. Alternatively, box irons had two metal slugs that could be heated and slotted inside…In the 1860s, a laundress earned between 1s 6d and 2s a day, rising to 2s 6d a day during the 1870s, with a beer allowance being an expected perk. It was a paltry income for the effort involved…”

Sarah’s children had by then all left home and Sarah had taken in lodgers, no doubt to supplement her income. Two of her lodgers were sisters, Eliza and Elizabeth Bassill, also launderesses. Elizabeth was to marry Josiah East, a timber merchant and she is buried in Rectory Lane cemetery with her husband (plot 406) and her sister Eliza married Josiah’s brother Cornelius.

Perhaps not surprisingly given her age, Sarah had given up laundry work by the time of the next census in 1861. She had also left Berkhamsted. We find her living at 14 New Street, St Mary Newington, London, in the home of her daughter Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s husband, John Welster, a carpenter, and their five children.

The 1871 census reveals that Sarah was then living alone  at 4 Howard Terrace in Camberwell. There was another family also living at the same address, but they are separately numbered on the census return suggesting that they were two separate households. Sarah is noted as being an annuitant. That is somewhat curious. The fact she was the widow of a timber carrier and herself had worked as a straw plaiter and launderess suggests that she probably had little money of her own. If that is correct, how did she come by the capital to provide her with an annuity?

Sarah died in June 1874 at the age of 84. Her memorial records her date of death as being 8th June, whilst her death certificate has the date 9th June. She had been suffering from dropsy for two months prior to her death. Whilst Sarah was living in London in 1871, she returned to Berkhamsted towards the end of her life, the death certificate recording that she died at Gossoms End, Berkhamsted.  She was buried in the same plot as her husband John and her son Joseph.

Joseph Bunn

13/06/1817 –31/05/1850

Labourer. Convicted of poaching. Married a straw plaiter. Died at 32 of inflammation of the kidney

Relatives

John Bunn — father

• Christopher Dolton

JOSEPH BUNN; 1817-1850

Joseph was born in Berkhamsted on 13th June 1817 and baptised on 27th July that year. His parents were John and Sarah Bunn. John was a timber carrier and Sarah a straw plaiter. Joseph had an older brother, James, who was born in 1815.  It appears that he also had a twin, brother, William, and whilst we do not have William’s exact date of birth, we do know William was born in 1817. William was baptised a week before Joseph on 20th July 1817. William died shortly afterwards and was buried on 3rd August 1817 in St. Peter’s churchyard.

More siblings followed. Sarah gave birth to another son in 1819, who was also named William. Thomas followed in late 1826 and was baptised on 31st December that year. Like William he too died soon after he was born and was buried at St Peter’s on 20th January 1827. Elizabeth, the couple’s first daughter, was born in 1828, Eliza in 1830, Emma in 1832 and finally the youngest, Edith, was born in 1836.

We know from the 1841 census that the Bunn family was living in Berkhamsted’s High Street, but Joseph, who would then have been 24 years of age, was not with the family. He may have been absent on the date of the census, or perhaps more likely, given his age, he had moved out of the family home. Frustratingly he can’t be found in the 1841 census which would give us his occupation, but his death certificate from nine years later in 1850 tells us he was a labourer.

We do know that Joseph was living in Berkhamsted in 1838, as we have a certificate recording his conviction on 3rd April 1838 before a Justice of the Peace sitting at Berkhamsted and Joseph is noted as being of the Parish of Berkhampstead St Peter. His offence was poaching; he had trespassed on land in Northchurch in search of game. He was ordered to pay a fine of 10 shillings and an additional 19 shillings in costs. He may have only been a labourer, but the certificate shows that he had the means to pay the fine and costs immediately. Of the 10 shillings fine, five shillings was paid to the Overseer of the Poor, no doubt to help meet the costs of Poor Relief in the parish.

We also know that Joseph was in Berkhamsted in 1842, as in that year he married Charlotte Potter and the marriage was registered in the town. The 1851 census reveals that Charlotte, like many other poor women in the area, including Joseph’s mother Sarah, was a straw plaiter.

Joseph and Charlotte did not enjoy many years of matrimony together as Joseph died eight years later in Berkhamsted on 31st May 1850, just short of his 33rd birthday. A little over a year later the widowed Charlotte remarried.

Joseph’s death certificate  tells us that he died of “Morbus Bryghtis” – inflammation of the kidneys. Joseph was laid to rest in Rectory Lane cemetery in the same plot in which his father, Joseph, had been buried three years earlier.