Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Elizabeth Gregory

12/12/1835 –30/10/1917

Born in Nottinghamshire, housemaid at Rossway Estate, married the butler, mother of two

Relatives

Robert Gregory — husband

Gertrude Gregory — daughter

Annie Edith Gregory — daughter

• Christopher Dolton

ELIZABETH GREGORY; 1834 – 1917
Elizabeth was born on 12th December 1834. She was the third child born to John and Mary Duke. Elizabeth had an older brother, John, born in 1830 and a sister, Jane, born in 1832. A younger brother, Samuel, was to be born in 1835. The family lived in Tollerton in Nottinghamshire and her father was a gardener. She was baptised in St Peter’s church in Tollerton on 18th January 1835.

The 1851 census reveals that at the age of 16 Elizabeth had entered domestic service and she and her older sister Jane, who was then 19, were working as house servants together with a third servant for the Wakefield Family. Samuel and Maria Wakefield lived in Beeston in Nottinghamshire and had three children. The census tells us that Samuel Wakefield was a proprietor of houses and railway shares.

Work as a domestic servant was common for young women and girls during the Victorian era. By the time of the 1891 census 1.3 million women and girls were working as domestic servants. That is one in three women between the ages of 15 and 20. They were usually recruited between the ages of 10 and 13. Women were cheaper to employ than male servants as there was a tax on indoor male servants and pay for male servants was also greater than that paid to women. A servant working for a middleclass family would usually live in the family’s house. Hours were long and the pay was poor, £6 – £12 per annum. Servants were under the constant scrutiny and whilst living closely with the family were kept rigidly apart from it. Most employers felt they had a right to look through their servant’s belongings and it was not until 1860 that it became illegal to beat a servant. It was legal for employers to order servants to accompany them to church, but the servants had to sit at the back in a segregated section. There was no job security if a servant fell ill or committed some misdemeanour. Being a servant did have some advantages; a servant probably lived in better surroundings than her original home and some families were very good to their servants.

By 1851, although Elizabeth remained in domestic service, both she and her sister Jane had moved on from the Wakefields and were working in an altogether grander establishment, that of the Hadden family at The Park in Nottingham. Jane was a house maid and nurse, Elizabeth a house maid. It was at The Park that Elizabeth met her future husband, Robert Gregory, who was also in service with the Haddens, working as a footman.

When Charles Hadden bought the Rossway Estate just outside Berkhamsted in 1863, Robert had moved to Berkhamsted as butler for Charles Hadden and his family. The new house which Charles Hadden built at Rossway was completed early in 1866 and on 20th March that year Elizabeth and Robert married. The marriage was celebrated at St Peter’s church, Tollerton, the same church in which Elizabeth had been baptised 31 years earlier.

When Charles Hadden had the new house at Rossway built the old house was demolished apart from the kitchen end of the building which was converted to provide Robert with a home. Elizabeth joined him and there gave birth to their daughters, Annie Edith, born in 1867 and Gertrude, born on 15th April 1869. It would appear from the 1871 census that following her marriage to Robert, Elizabeth did not continue in domestic service; whilst Robert’s occupation is noted in the census as that of butler, no occupation is noted against Elizabeth’s name.

The family were still at Rossway at the time of the 1881 census. Elizabeth was then 45 years old and Annie (named as Edith in the census return) was 13 and Gertrude 11. Also living with the family was a sister in law, 62 year old Ann Duke.

Three years later in 1884 the Haddens were to suffer a dramatic reversal in their fortunes. The coffee plantations in Ceylon upon which they depended for their fortunes were devastated by disease and the family could no longer afford to maintain Rossway. The property was leased and the servants, including Robert and his family, lost their positions and home.

Robert and Elizabeth took a public house in London, the Falkland Arms. The 1891 census gives Robert’s occupation as “licenced victualler.” Gertrude is described in the census as “assistant.”  The family was additionally able to employ a barman and a domestic servant, both of whom also lived at the pub. The Falkland Arms is given as Robert’s address in the 1895 Post Office Directory, but by 1899 Robert had left the Falkland Arms and retired to Berkhamsted.

Robert had made sufficient money to buy a substantial property in Kings Road, Falkland House, where he, together with Elizabeth and Gertrude and Annie Edith, were living at the time of the 1901 census. The family was sufficiently well-to-do to be able to employ a 19 year old general servant girl who also lived at the house. In 1911 Annie and Gertrude were still spinsters and living with Robert and Elizabeth at Falkland House. The family was then employing two domestic servants.

Gertrude was to die in 1913 and was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery. Robert died aged 77 years on 7th April 1916 and was buried in the same plot as Gertrude. Just over one year later, on 30th October 1917, Elizabeth herself was to die. She too was laid to rest with her daughter Gertrude and husband, Robert.

Robert Gregory

15/11/1839 –07/04/1916

Born in Leicester, Rossway Estate butler, publican of a London pub, upwardly mobile success story

Relatives

Gertrude Gregory — daughter

Annie Edith Gregory — daughter

Elizabeth Gregory — wife

• Christopher Dolton

ROBERT GREGORY; 1839 – 1916.
Robert Gregory was born on 15th November 1839. Although Robert was to be buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery, he was not born in Berkhamsted. His story begins in Diseworth, Leicestershire, where he was born to Samuel and Ann Gregory on 15th November 1839. He was their first child, a sister, Mary, being born in about 1843.

The census of 1841 records that his father, then 33 years of age, was a cotton framework knitter. The first knitting frame had been invented in 1589 by William Lee from Calverton in Nottingham. It made it possible for workers to produce knitted goods around 100 times faster than by hand and was the first step in the mechanisation of the textile industry. By the early 1800s, there were around 20,000 frames in use across the East Midlands. In time, the frameworkers discovered how to adapt their machines to knit cotton and lace as well as wool.

Life as a framework knitter, or stockinger as they were known, was hard. Hours were long and working conditions cramped, uncomfortable and dangerous. Workers had to pay to use their frames, even if no work was available, and buy all their own materials. Low wages meant the whole family would have to work, with children such as Robert taking on tasks such as wool winding. Poor health and malnutrition were rife. The 1833 Royal Commission on Children in Factories found that “…They are many of them unhealthy and dyspeptic;… from the long period of labour endured in a close and confined atmosphere… I can tell a stockinger well by his appearance; there is a paleness and certain degree of emaciation and thinness about them… hopeless poverty is producing fearful demoralisation.”

Robert was lucky in that although it was not until the passing into law of The Elementary Education Act of 1870, that education became compulsory for children between the ages of 5 years and 10 years, the 1851 census tells us that he, then 11 years of age was a scholar, i.e. attending school.  Whilst many poorer parents were opposed to compulsory education as it meant that children who otherwise might have been in gainful employment earning an income for their families had to attend school, fortunately for Robert his parents seem to have taken a different view.

The next record we have for Robert is the 1861 census. Robert was then aged 21 and had entered service as a footman for the Hadden family. Footmen were supervised by the butler and performed a range of duties which included serving meals, opening and closing doors, carrying heavy items, or moving furniture for the housemaids to clean behind. The footmen might also double as valets, especially for visiting guests.

The Hadden Family lived at The Park in Nottingham and the head of the family was Charles Hadden. In 1863 Charles Hadden purchased the Rossway Estate near Berkhamsted and Robert became Hadden’s Butler on the estate.

In August 1963, Percy Birtchnell wrote an article  in the Berkhamsted Review “The Rossway Centenary”  in which he recounted the history of the estate. Birtchnell, drawing on unpublished memoires of a Hadden family member, tells us that Charles Hadden, a Ceylon coffee planter, (in the 1861 census Charles Hadden was described not as a coffee planter but a hosiery manufacturer) wrote to his sister on 29th July 1863 stating that he had “purchased 577 acres, all Rossway, today for £34,500.” There was an existing old house on the estate. Hadden built a new house, but the old one was not completely demolished; “…the kitchen end was saved to provide a nice little home for Gregory, the first Butler.”

Birtchnell gives us some insights into Robert’s life as Butler at Rossway:
“Every Christmas morn, at 7 o’clock, ‘Christians awake’ was sung by the servants in the hall, to the strains of a concertina played by Gregory.”
“In hard winters friends from mile around flocked to Rossway to skate on the moat…Gregory handed round claret cup and mulled wine to the skaters, a tricky job on the slippery banks of the moat.”
On Sunday morning, winter and summer alike, everyone at Rossway marched off to St Mary’s Northchurch…Down the hill trooped the whole family followed at a respectful distance by the servants.”

Robert married on the 20th March 1866. His bride was Elizabeth Duke and the marriage took place in Tollerton, Notts. The 1861 census reveals that Elizabeth too was also in service with the Hadden family; she was a housemaid at The Park where the two of them must have met. Elizabeth was to give birth to two daughters, Annie Edith born in 1868 and Gertrude Jane born on 15th April 1896.

1884 saw a dramatic change in the fortune of the Hadden family, which in turn had an impact on the Haddens’ servants, Robert and his family included. Percy Birtchnell tells us that whilst Charles Hadden was trying to establish tea plantations in Ceylon, a disease struck the coffee plantations on the island from which the family derived its income and with this reversal of fortune, the family could no longer afford to maintain Rossway. In 1886 the property was leased and the Haddens “…reluctantly moved out saying farewell to their servants amongst whom was the faithful Gregory.” The Bucks Herald of 30th October 1886 carried the following notice “THURSDAY…- Sale of household furniture and effects at Rossway, near Berkhamsted by Messrs W. Brown & Co.” The Haddens were later able to restore their fortune and the family returned to Rossway in 1903.

The servants were not so fortunate. 51 years old and faced with the loss not only of his position but also the “nice little home” that he and his family occupied, what was Robert to do? Percy Birtchnell provides the answer: “He took a public house in London….”  The public house that Robert took was the Falkland Arms, at 66 Falkland Road, St Pancras. The 1891 census gives Robert’s occupation as “licenced victualler.” His wife Elizabeth and younger daughter Gertrude were also at the Falkland Arms, Gertrude’s occupation being given as “assistant.”  Robert was additionally able to employ a barman and a domestic servant, both of whom also lived at the pub. The Falkland Arms is given as Robert’s address in the 1895 Post Office Directory, but by 1899 Robert and family must have left the Falkland Arms, as the Post Office Directory for that year has one Alfred Garrod at the premises. The Falkland Arms closed as a pub in the 1990s and is now residential flats, albeit the old pub façade has been retained.

Birtchnell provides the information that Robert “….in retirement lived in Berkhamsted.” The 1901 census confirms that Robert did indeed move back to Berkhamsted to retire. He was then 61 years old. He is noted as being “retired hotel keeper” although more prosaically written against that is the note “pub.” Whether retired hotel keeper or publican, Robert had made sufficient money to buy a substantial property in Kings Road, Falkland House (so named, presumably, after the pub Robert had just retired from). As well as Elizabeth, the couples’ two daughters also lived there. Annie Edith is noted as Edith. She was then 33 and single and Gertrude was 31 and also single. The family was sufficiently well-to-do to be able to employ a 19 year old general servant girl who also lived at the house. In 1911 Annie and Gertrude were still spinsters and living with Robert and Elizabeth at Falkland House. The family then employed two domestic servants. Robert had come a long way from his humble beginnings as the son of framework knitter.

Gertrude was to die in April 1913 and was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery. Robert died three years later, aged 77 years on 7th April 1916. Probate of his estate was granted in London to Annie Edith and John Burton, a journalist. His effects were worth £4,678 18s 3d. He was buried in the same plot as Gertrude.