Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Elizabeth Alexander

1829 –11/10/1911

Daughter of Evangelical minister; sometime draper, teacher and domestic servant

• Melanie Hilton

 Elizabeth Alexander (1829-1911)

Elizabeth was w the daughter of Samuel and Mary Ann (née Poulton) Alexander. She was baptised 25^th December 1829 in the parish of Horsley, a small village south of Stroud in Gloucestershire.

Samuel, born 1809, was the youngest child of thirteen of an agricultural labourer, and Elizabeth’s baptismal record gives his occupation as ‘shearsman’, although presumably he had other agricultural work out of the shearing season. Despite what must have been very limited educational opportunities for a man in his position at the time, by the 1841 Census he is a schoolmaster in Chipping Campden with a family of seven children, of whom Elizabeth was the eldest.

At some point between 1842 and 1845 the family moved to Wendover, Buckinghamshire where the two youngest members of the family were born.

Samuel’s education may have been via the opportunities for self-improvement offered by the various evangelical churches at the time, because in the 1851 census, Samuel has moved to Finsbury and is described as ‘City Missionary’. Six of his children were still at home including Elizabeth, now a governess.

By 1861 the family, still consisting of Samuel and Mary Ann and six of their unmarried children, have moved to Marylebone where Samuel was a missionary. Elizabeth (“Bessie”) now works as a draper.  The family, with five of the children working, can afford a general servant.

Samuel Alexander moved to Berkhamsted to become the lay minister of the Plymouth Brethren evangelical church from 1870.

By 1871 Elizabeth was living and working with her younger brother James, an unmarried linen draper who lived at 39, High Street, Kensington. The business must have been flourishing because as well as Elizabeth, James employed two male and two female assistants and a general servant, all of whom “lived in”.

In 1881 the Census records Samuel as living in Manor Street, Berkhamsted with Mary Ann, his wife, Elizabeth, now described as “teacher”, and a general servant. The handwriting on the census is very poor, but Samuel is described as “Minister of Gospel Hope Hall [?] preacher.”

Elizabeth lost her father in 1883 and her mother in 1888 and they are buried in plot x42.

At some point before 1901, Elizabeth, now alone, moved to 1, Hope Villas, King’s Road. She is described as “living on her own means” and she could afford to employ a domestic servant. She died there 11th October 1919 aged 82.

It is clear from the inscription on her gravestone that she continued to be actively involved with Hope Hall and its work:

“Her Loving And Devoted Service For Many Years In The Lord’s Work At Hope Hall Will Long Be Remembered.”