Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

John Frowde

1827 –12/12/1905

A Jack of all trades - waiter, soldier, beer dealer, shoemaker and finally maker of ginger beer

Relatives

Sophia Frowde (817) — wife

• Christopher Dolton

JOHN FROWDE; 1827 – 1905

John was born in Berkhamsted. We can calculate from the fact he was 78 years old when he died that John was born in 1827 or 1828, although he was not baptised until 17^th May 1829. He was the first child born to Elizabeth and John Frowde, a shoemaker. (The name also appears in records both as Frowd and Froude.)  The Frowde family moved away from Berkhamsted, as at the time of the 1841 census we find them living in Barking, Essex. John, however, moved back to Berkhamsted by 1851 and he was then living at the King’s Arm’s in Berkhamsted’s High Street where he worked as a waiter. The King’s Arms was then run by Mary Page or, as she is perhaps better known, Polly Page. Polly’s father had previously run the inn and when she was about 20 years old she met Louis XVIII. Louis, had been living in exile following the French Revolution and the establishment of Napoleon’s regime and had established his court at Hartwell House near Aylesbury. On frequent journeys to and from London he met with Polly while his horses were changed at the inn. When Louis returned to France in 1814, he invited Polly to visit him, which she did. Gossip began to circulate and Polly had to publish a denial of the scandalous rumours circulating about her friendship with Louis. When Polly’s father died in 1840, she took over the running of the inn. She too was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery when she died in 1865. 

John did not however remain at the Kings Arms for long. He took the Queen’s shilling and joined the Army. We find in the census of 1861 a John Froude, born in Herts, Great Berkhampstead, living in barracks in Winchester, serving as a private in the army. (His age, however, is noted as 27, five or six years younger than it ought to have been.)  Peninsula Barracks in Winchester was the home of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps and the Rifle Brigade and in addition to the census, military records also identify a private soldier, John Froud, serving with the Kings Royal Rifle Corps in Winchester in 1861.

We don’t have any other details of John’s military service, but we know he have must have left the Army by 1866 as he had by then returned to Berkhamsted and that year married the recently widowed Sophia Rolph, a widow with a six year old daughter, Henrietta. In 1871 John and Sophia were living on Berkhamsted’s High Street. Sophia had given birth to the first two of five children she was to have with John, Louisa, born about 1869 and Emily, 1870. Sophia was later to give birth to Bessie in 1873, Rose in 1875 and Henry, 1875.  As well Sophia’s older daughter, Henrietta, Sophia’s elderly father was also living with the family.

John, perhaps making use of his experience of working at the Kings Arms, had begun business as a beer dealer in Berkhamsted’s High Street. In the 1820’s and 1830’s widespread drunkenness through gin consumption was believed to be detrimental to the working class. Beer at the time was heavily taxed, making it prohibitively expensive, despite the fact it was safer to drink than water. To encourage people to turn away from gin and drink beer instead, the Beerhouse Act of 1830 abolished beer tax. The Act also introduced beerhouses and beershops. These establishments could only sell beer. For a small fee of 2 guineas anyone could brew and sell beer.  Although these premises, like public houses, were licensed, supervision of beershops by the local justices was limited. Concern over law and order led to an increase in the licence fee to 3 guineas. It was not until 1869 that a change of law brought such premises back under the control of the local justices. Many then closed, or were purchased by breweries and changed to fully licensed public houses.

By 1881 John and his family had moved to Highfield Road and John had changed occupation once again. He was then working as shoemaker, no doubt having picked up the necessary skills from his father. The reason for both the move and change of occupation becomes apparent on reading an advertisement carried by the Hemel Hempstead Gazette in 1874 giving notice of the auction of a number of properties in Berkhamsted described as “Very Eligible Freehold Building Land…”  Lot 2 was a dwelling house and garden in the High Street “…held by Mr John Frowd as an ale store.” John must have been forced to move on by the sale of the premises from which he ran his beershop. Ten years later, John and family had moved again, this time to Chesham Road. John was still then working as shoe maker.

Sophia died in 1895 at the age of 46 and was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery. Her address at the time of her death was 8 High Street and that is where John was living in 1901 with one of his daughters, Emily, and his son Henry, who had become a hairdresser. (Henry, or Harry as he was to be better known, was a barber in Berkhamsted with a shop for many years on Grab All Row in the High Street.)

John, at the age of 73, and, as the census return tells us, suffering with “bad legs” had changed occupation once more. Perhaps hankering for his days as a beer dealer, he had given up shoemaking to work on his own account as a “ginger beer maker.”  John was not the only maker of ginger beer in Berkhamsted. A far larger enterprise was that of H. Lee & Sons who made ginger ale, cordials and ginger wine, originally from converted stables on the High Street and latterly from a purpose built factory built in 1903.

John died on 12^th December 1905 at the age of 78. Two days later, on 14^th December, he was buried with Sophia.

Sophia Frowde (817)

1839 –04/03/1899

Straw plaiter. Married and widowed at 26, then married John Frowde

Relatives

John Frowde — husband

• Christopher Dolton

SOPHIA FROWDE; 1839 – 1899

Sophia was born in Berkhamsted in 1839. She was the fifth child born to George and Catherine Nash. The family lived in Gossoms End and her father was a blacksmith. The family was living in Gossoms End in 1841, but two years earlier, the 1839 Tithe map identified George Nash as occupier of tithe plot 446. That consisted of three cottages and garden and was at the eastern end of the High Street. (the adjacent plot, number 445 was occupied by William Nash.)

Ten years later the family had moved to Northchurch and were living in Prospect Place on New Road. Sophia’s father was no longer working as a blacksmith. He is noted in the 1851 census as a general labourer. Sophia, then 11 years old was already working; like many young children and women of poorer families in the area, including two of Sophia’s older sister, she was working as 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. Percy Bitchnell wrote in his book, A Short History of Berkhamsted, “…it was a profitable occupation and in the first half of the 19^th 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”.

In 1859 Sophia married. Her husband was David Rolph. Like her father, David was a general labourer. The newly married couple set up home in the Pightle (now Highfield Road). Sophia continued to work as a straw plaiter. She gave birth in 1860 to a daughter, Henrietta. Sophia’s marriage to David Rolph did not last long.  David died in 1866 at the young age of 26.  He was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery on 10^th November that year. Sophia, alone at the age 27, with a young daughter to care for, economically vulnerable and faced with prospect of the workhouse if unable to provide for herself and her daughter, did what many other young widows must have done in such circumstances. She found another husband. Within a year of David’s death, she had remarried. Her second husband was John Frowde. John was 11 years older than Sophia and ran a beer shop in the High Street. John found himself living not only with a wife, but also a step daughter and his new wife’s elderly father.

Sophia’s marriage was to last longer than her first marriage. She was to give birth to five children with John, four daughters, Louisa born about 1869; Emily, about 1870; Bessie, 1873 and Rose, 1875. Her last child, a son, Henry, was born in about 1878.

By 1881 the family had moved to Highfield Road. The premises in which John had his beer shop had been sold in 1874 and that probably explains the move to Highfield Road and the fact that John was no longer then selling beer, but working as shoemaker. Sophia’s father must have died by 1881 as he is no longer living with the family. Although no occupation is noted against Sophia’s name, her eldest daughter, Louisa, had followed in her mother’s footsteps and was also a straw plaiter.

Ten years later Sophia and John had moved again and were then living in Chesham Road. John was still working as a shoemaker. Henrietta, Louisa and Emily had all moved out of the family home, but Rose, 15 years old, and Henry, 13, were still living with Sophia and John. Rose was an apprentice dressmaker and Henry was an errand boy. (Henry, or Harry as he was to be better known, was to be become a barber in Berkhamsted with a shop for many years on Grab All Row in the High Street.)

Sophia died at the age 59 on the 4^th March 1899. The cemetery records note her address as 8 High Street. The records does not note who conducted the funeral, but does tell us that she was buried under the provisions of the Burials Act 1880, suggesting she was a non-conformist. Prior to the introduction of the Act, anyone who died in the parish had the right to be buried in the cemetery, but the funeral had to be conducted in accordance with the rites of the established Church of England. The 1880 Act allowed for funeral to be conducted outside the Anglican rites provided notice was given. Interestingly, John, when he died was buried according to Anglican rites by the then Assistant Curate.

Sophia was joined in her grave by John when he died in 1905. Their memorial reads: “Sophia Frowde who fell asleep in Jesus 4^th March 1899, aged 59. Also of John, husband of the above, died 12^th December 1905, aged 78.”