Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Dockrill

1849 –13/12/1895

Probable grave of mother and daughter, Phoebe and Lily Dockrill

• Christopher Dolton

DOCKRILL

Although the site of the Dockrill grave is no longer visible, records reveal that it is situated in the north eastern corner at the bottom of the cemetery. Without a memorial naming the occupants of the grave we must turn to the burial records for assistance in determining who is buried in the plot. The Burial Records, whilst not identifying the grave plot in which they were buried, gives us the names of two people with the surname Dockrill who were interred in the cemetery. The first was Phoebe Dockrill, who was buried on 17^th December 1895. She was 46 years old when she died and she lived in the High Street. The second was Lily Ethel Dockrill, who was buried on 6^th May 1905. She died at West Herts Infirmary in Hemel Hempstead, but she too lived in the High Street. She was 13 years old when she died and, as we shall see, was the daughter of Phoebe. As we know this mother and daughter were both buried in the cemetery, and as we have only one grave named “Dockrill,” it is probably safe to assume that both Phoebe and Lily lay buried together in the same grave.

Phoebe was the wife of Charles Dockrill, a tailor who for many years ran his business in Berkhamsted’s High Street. Charles was not originally from Berkhamsted. He had been born in 1863 in Stanbridge, in Bedfordshire. His father and indeed also his older brother were agricultural labourers. Charles however took a different route. In 1881 we find him at the age of 18 years living in Berkhamsted in the home of Richard Sear, a master tailor employing three apprentices, of whom Charles was one. Charles was to go on to set up on his own account as a tailor at 202 High Street. Percy Birtchnell writing in the Berkhamsted Review in January 1970 mentioned that “C Dockrill made trousers to measure from 10s 6d or 13s, and suits from 30s. He also cleaned, curled and dyed feather, then very fashionable.” Charles’ shop in 1901 was at 202 High Street (next door to the draper’s shop of Walter Timson, another occupant of the cemetery) and latterly at 242 High Street.

Phoebe was not a local either. She was born in 1849, or early 1850, in Yarcombe in Devon.  Her father, like Charles’ father, was also an agricultural labourer. At the age of 12 Phoebe was working alongside her mother making doe skin gloves. Phoebe did not continue in that occupation. Both she and her younger sisters like many other young women from poor families of the time, entered domestic service. In 1871, Phoebe, age 22 years and her younger sister Anne, age 12 years, were working as domestic servants for James Mickleburgh, the Rector of Ashill in Somerset. Ten years later, James Mickleburgh’s wife had died and Phoebe was then his housekeeper. Anne had moved on, but another young member of the Newbery family, 14 year old Caroline, was also then working as a domestic servant for the rector. James Mickleburgh died in 1884 and we don’t know where Phoebe moved to then.

One might reasonably wonder how a tailor from Berkhamsted came to meet and marry a housekeeper from the West Country. The answer, as is often the case, is through family. One of Phoebe’s sisters, Matilda had married Charles’ half brother John, and presumably it was through the two of them that Phoebe and Charles met. Phoebe married Charles Dockrill on 18^th January 1890. The marriage was celebrated at St Peter’s Church in Paddington. Charles was 26 at the time of the marriage; Phoebe was somewhat surprisingly 14 years his senior at age 40, which may be explained by the fact it looks like a shot gun marriage as Phoebe gave birth to the couple’s first child, Daisy, five months after the marriage on 1^st May 1890.

Phoebe moved to Berkhamsted where Charles continued his business as a tailor. In 1891, as well as Daisy having been born, Phoebe’s father, William had joined the couple and was living with them. Also visiting at the time was Caroline Newbery. One wonders what Charles, having been a bachelor a little over a year earlier, thought about his new family and sudden influx of in-laws!

The marriage must have been successful at least to the degree that Phoebe went on to have two more children, both daughters and like Daisy, they too were named after flowers. Lily was born in 1892 and Violet in 1894.

Phoebe died at home at the age of 46 years on 13^th December 1895. The cause of her death was peritonitis, inflammation of the lining of the abdomen  and as we already know, she was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery.

Two years later Charles remarried. His second bride was Alice Susannah Francotte, who we learn from the 1911 census was an “ostrich feather dresser,” and it was probably she who was responsible for the cleaning and dressing of feathers to which Percy Birtchnell referred. Charles had another two children with Anne, both boys,