Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Willam Ellis

d.13/12/1942

Relatives

Caroline Ellis — wife

Caroline Ellis

d.21/02/1935

Parlour maid, married a woodsman, had two daughters who worked at the mantle factory.

Relatives

Willam Ellis — husband

• Karen Evans

On 4th December 1854 Charles William Chapman Hawkins married Matilda Hopcraft Nash at St Mary’s Northchurch. Their marriage entry states that Charles was the son of William Hawkins, an upholsterer, whilst Matilda’s father was stated as being James Hopcraft, labourer.

In actual fact both Charles and Matilda were born to unmarried parents, and in Victorian times would have be identified as being “illegitimate”.

Charles William was baptised at St Peter’s Berkhamsted, on 6th August 1843 aged eight, the son of William Hawkins and Agnes Chapman. He was not the only child of this illicit union, Agnes Chapman and William Hawkins also had two daughters Emma (born 1838) and Maria (born 1840) whom they baptised the same day as Charles. Charles’ father was indeed an upholsterer and cabinet maker who lived in Berkhamsted High Street. He married Sarah Mortleman in Berkhamsted in 1843, at which point his liaison with Agnes Chapman appears to have ended.

Caroline’s mother, Matilda, had been baptised at Oving in Buckinghamshire on 29th May 1835, the daughter of Catherine Nash, a single woman, with no father entered in the baptismal register.

Seven years later, at the time of the 1861 census, the couple can be found living in Berkhamsted High Street with three daughters, Caroline, Jane and Sarah. Charles’ grandmother, Susannah Chapman, a widow from Hemel Hempstead, who appears to have raised her grandson was living next-door.

It was not until the 23rd July 1865 that Charles Chapman, sawyer of Berkhamsted, and his wife, Matilda, baptised four children at the Parish Church of St Peter’s. They were:

• Caroline the first daughter, born 19th October 1854
• Jane the second daughter born 11th March 1857
• Sarah the third daughter born25th March 1860
• William first son born 30th May 1863.

Being baptised at eleven years of age would have given plenty of time for the congregation at St Peter’s to forget that Caroline was actually born three months before her parents’ marriage.

By 1871 Caroline appears to have left home, as the census shows her as a domestic servant living with Mary Watson, a widow of independent means, from Bath. The move wasn’t far as Mrs Watson lived along the High Street from Caroline’s parents; whose family had increased with the arrival of three more daughters:

• Kate baptised at St Peter’s on 23rd December 1864
• Emily Louisa baptised at St Peter’s on 5th August 1870 aged 3
• Clara baptised at St Peter’s on 5th August 1870.

In 1881 Caroline was still working in service, now as a parlour maid for another wealthy widow, Ann Crawford from Cirencester. This was a larger household than Caroline’s previous employment, where she was the only live-in staff. Mrs Crawford’s house at Sunnyside was able to accommodate a cook and two maids.

In 1887 at the age of 32, Caroline married William Ellis, a woodsman from the beautiful Cotswold village of Wyck Rissington, in the registration district of Stow on the Wold in Gloucestershire. William and Caroline’s first child, Elizabeth Kate, was born on 18th June 1889 in the village of Wyck Rissington, where her father had been born and raised.

One can only speculate on how Caroline got from Berkhamsted to rural Gloucestershire. However, in 1891 when William and Caroline were living in Wyck Rissington village with baby Elizabeth, they were living next to The Rectory. The parish priest was one Reverend Paul Edward O’Bryan Methuen, whose wife Henrietta Emily (nee Gape) had been born in Berkhamsted. Rev. Methuen’s father-in-law, Major James John Gape J.P. maintained a considerable household of domestic staff throughout the 1870’s and 1880’s, employing a cook, various housemaids, kitchen maids and parlourmaids. It is possible that Caroline was in service with the Gape family and moved to Gloucestershire when the Rev Methuen took up his living at Wyck Rissington in 1885.

On 15th April 1892 Caroline gave birth to a second daughter, Clara Ellen, also at Wyck Rissington. Caroline was now 38 years old, and she and William never had any more children.

Sometime between Clara’s birth in 1892 and the 1891 census, William and Caroline and their two daughters moved to Berkhamsted. Caroline had grown up in a much larger family than her husband’s, so when William’s father, Thomas Ellis, died in 1891 and his mother, Ann had died in 1896, there were no relatives left to keep him in Wyck Rissington. William’s only brother, was living in the Conway area of Wales, so one can only imagine that Caroline, missing her own parents and siblings, wanted to return home. The evidence supports this as Caroline’s father, Charles William Chapman, died at Berkhamsted in 1900.

In 1901 Caroline, William, Elizabeth and Clara were living in Bridge Street, Berkhamsted, next door to Caroline’s brother, William Chapman. William Chapman was now married with six children of his own, so Elizabeth and Clara would have had cousins to play with and their widowed grandmother, Matilda, was also nearby in Berkhamsted High Street. The additional attraction that Berkhamsted had was the considerably higher number of employment opportunities for William, who was now a domestic gardener. As Caroline had been in service from at least the age of 16 to when she got married, she would have known the local families that employed staff. Domestic staff that were known and trusted were highly valued by their employers.

By 1911 the family had moved to 28 Shrublands Avenue. William was still a domestic gardener, and their daughters were now working in Berkhamsted’s mantle factory. In 1898, a factory was built in Lower Kings Road to produce high quality ladies’ clothing, H.G. Hughes & Co. The building, although called the Bulbourne factory, was locally known as “the mantle factory” (a reference to its original purpose, to make cape-like mantles). “The mantle-making trade was one which depended chiefly on feminine labour. Mantle-making took place in an enormous chamber, beautifully lighted, and the busy hum of 180 girls reminds one of a huge swarm of bees.” (The Advertiser & Times, Mar 1902).

On 25th July 1925 Caroline’s youngest daughter, Clara Ellen, married George Ing. Sadly Caroline never became a grandmother, as Caroline and George Ing never had any children and her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, remained single and lived at home with her parents.

Caroline died on 21st February 1935 aged 81 in Berkhamsted.