Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Charles Harrowell

d.22/09/1968

Served in the Second Boer War, had own building company, joined Royal Navy Air Service in WWI

• Jane Beaty

Charles, known informally as Charlie throughout his life, was the sixth child of William and Lizzie Harrowell. He was born on 10th September 1879 when he parents lived in Berkhamsted High Street, and baptised at St Peter’s. At that time his father was a bricklayer.

Charlie attended Victoria Boys’ School until he was eleven then moved on to the Bourne School on the same day as Edward Popple (q.v.). By that time his father had founded his own building company, called William Harrowell & Sons and two of Charlie’s older brothers were working in the business.

In October 1899, when Charlie was just 20, the Boer War started. The regular British Army was small and well-trained but it soon became clear that it was outnumbered. Public opinion in Britain reacted with an unprecedented outbreak of jingoistic war fever. Volunteers rushed forward to form units to be sent to South Africa to “teach the Boers a lesson”. One of these volunteers was Charlie. At the end of January 1900 he joined the 2nd Volunteer Company of the Bedford Regiment as a Private. At the point of his attestation he was asked whether he was prepared to serve in South Africa in the Second Boer War and he signed to say he was willing. Unlike the rest of his large family, he does not appear in the 1901 UK census so I think we can assume that he was in South Africa at the time. His service ended in May 1905, when he returned to Berkhamsted to take up the building trade again.

In the autumn of the following year he married Mary Burge in Hemel Hempstead. Mary was the daughter of a military family so no doubt her father felt comfortable about Charlie being an ex-serviceman.

By 1911 Charlie had set up his own brick making and building company. He and Mary lived at 4 Montague Road and he was busy, alongside his father, building houses throughout the south-west core of Berkhamsted. Eight years previously,  fifty-four plots of freehold building land in Shrublands Avenue, a new street at the west end of Berkhamsted, had been sold and by 1911 Charlie owned four of these in addition to his own house in Montague Road.

Charlie and Mary’s only child was a daughter, Betty who was born in 1912. When she grew up she became a nurse so there was no-one in his immediate family to continue in the building trade.

When the First World War started one of Charlie’s younger brothers Albert, who had been an Army reservist whilst working in the family firm, was called up to serve in the Royal Engineers. Another brother, Frank, one of the few members of the family who lived away from Berkhamsted, left his job as a builder’s merchant to serve in the Machine Gun Corps. In May 1916 Charlie himself enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service. He gave his address as 4, Montague Road and Mary, his wife, was his next of kin. He described himself as a bricklayer and was 5’6” with a tattoo of a Highlander figure on his right arm. He served without incident  as an Aircraftman First Class in Wandsworth and Purfleet, working as a carpenter. He remained fit and well throughout the First World War and was discharged to the Royal Naval Reserve in April 1920.  Charlie’s two younger brothers Albert and Frank sadly did not come home. Albert died at Ypres in 1917 and Frank at Loos in 1918.

So Charlie, now a veteran of two wars, returned to 4 Montague Road and took up his life as a builder of homes in Berkhamsted. By this time his father William was 75 years old so was able to take a less active role. By 1922 Charlie was buying up parcels of building land in Kings Road, Ashlyns Road and Upper Ashlyns Road. This was all part of what had been the Smith-Dorrien Haresfoot Estate.

The family also owned brickworks. They made their own bricks in their two kilns, one in Oak Lane, Cholesbury and one using the red clay found at Shootersway. (In 2007 The Hospice of St Francis moved into their new premises built over the pit from which the Harrowells dug their clay.) This was at a time when there were many small brickmakers using the local clays and scattered around the Chilterns. Many houses in the town are constructed using Harrowells’ bricks. The workers at the various brickworks were often keen sportsmen and there was lively competition between them, especially at cricket. These events, held throughout the summer and stretching into the evening, were for families and children’s races were arranged, tennis was played and refreshments were served. The profits from these days were usually split between the local church wherever they played and something called the Brickworks’ Sports Club.

The business thrived and in 1935 Charlie was able to build his own house towards the top of Cross Oak Road. It was originally called “The Brick House”, presumably because he wanted to celebrate his profession, but was later re-named “Winsford”. The property had four bedrooms, high ceilings and oak panelling to the hall and staircase. He and Mary must have been very proud of their new house and would have incorporated all the features of a modern family home.

By 1939 Charlie described himself as a Master Builder so clearly he felt that he had risen in status. Living with him and Mary were their daughter Betty who had by now qualified as a nurse, a domestic servant and a “private nurse” called Clarice May Smith. Clarice went on to marry Charlie’s nephew Frank Harrowell in 1940 so it is questionable if she was living there as a nurse or as a relative. Also living with them was a Manager of Public Works called Horace Trinder who went on to marry Betty later in the year.

Mary died in 1946, aged 65, and Charlie lived on for 22 years. By the time he died he had moved from The Brick House to Maplins Mount in Darrs Lane where he died, aged 89, on 22nd September 1968. His estate was valued at £15,490.

Charlie is buried with Mary in Rectory Lane cemetery in Plot 1134.

Mary Harrowell

d.13/06/1946

From a Somerset family, married into the Harrowell building company.

• Jane Beaty

Mary was born Mary Burge and came from a Somerset family. Her father Isaac Burge was living in a small village called Stogumber when he married Ann Coles in 1862.

Five months later he enlisted in the Coldstream Guards at the Taunton recruiting office. At the time both Isaac and Ann were 18 years old. His father was a farmer so there was no history of military service within his immediate family. During his 24 years of army service he lived in barracks including in Chelsea, Essex and at Dover.

Mary was the couple’s sixth child and was born at Aldershot on 8th April 1881. Isaac reached the rank of Sergeant, Instructor of Gymnastics and retired from the army in 1886 when he was still in his 40s. Mary’s youngest brother Percival was born at Chelsea Barracks in the same year so that was presumably their father’s last posting.

Upon his discharge from the army Isaac moved with his wife and the younger members of his family to Hemel Hempstead where they lived in Cemmaes Terrace. In 1891 the family consisted of the parents and their three youngest children at school. By 1901 Mary had left home and her two brothers had taken jobs in the paper making industry.

In autumn 1906 Mary married Charles Harrowell in Hemel Hempstead. She was 23 years old. Charles, known as Charlie, came from a large family living in Berkhamsted and earning a good living in the building trade. He had not long been discharged from the Bedford Regiment, serving in the Boer War in South Africa. His father had founded his own building company and Charlie, aged 27 was well on the way to setting up his own company. One can imagine that Charlie and Isaac were able to exchange military tales.

By 1911 Mary and Charlie were living at 4 Montague Road in Berkhamsted, a house quite probably built by the family firm. Although at this point they had no children, they did later have a daughter Betty, born in April 1912. In 1916 Charlie enlisted in Royal Naval Air Service where he served his time in World War I, returning to Berkhamsted in 1920.

From then onwards Charlie’s building business thrived and in 1935 Charlie was able to build their own house, called “The Brick House” at the top of Cross Oak Road. Three years later, at the start of the war, Mary and Charlie were living there with their unmarried daughter Betty, a domestic servant and a “private nurse” called Clarice May Smith. Clarice went on to marry Charlie’s nephew Frank Harrowell in 1940 so it is questionable if she was living there as a nurse or as a relative. Also living with them was a Manager of Public Works called Horace Trinder who went on to marry Betty later in the year. So love was in the air in the 1939 household.

Mary and Charlie’s daughter Betty qualified in Hemel Hempstead as a nurse in 1934 and by exam as a midwife in 1935. She went on to practise as a nurse/midwife after her marriage to Horace Trinder in October 1939.  They moved out of The Brick House and started their married life in a house called “Cartref” in Darrs Lane, Berkhamsted.

Mary died, aged 65 on 13th June 1946 and is buried in Rectory Lane cemetery in Plot 1134.