Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Herbert Edward Bates

Pupil teacher who worked as station master, clerk, tobacconist, moved to Berkhamsted late in life

• Melanie Hilton

Grave Herbert Edward Bates (1844-1927)

Herbert was born in Sydenham, Kent on 8^th September 1844, the son of Edward Bates and Anne (née Mumford). Both his parents were schoolteachers in the National School system. “A National school was a school founded in 19th century England and Wales by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education. These schools provided elementary education, in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England, to the children of the poor.” [Wikipedia]

Herbert was their second son and would eventually have two brothers and a sister.

In the 1851 census the family were living at Sydenham Park, an area of middle class and professional residents.

Ten years later Herbert, aged sixteen, was a pupil teacher. His parents were still teaching too, and the family had moved to Paxton Villas in Sydenham, an area within sight of the Crystal Palace.

Herbert did not stay with teaching as a career and the 1871 census gives his occupation as “Station master”, employed by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company which had been created in 1859. In August 1865 they had opened the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway and this is presumably where Herbert was working.

At the time he was living at home with his parents, and his father was still working. His mother, however, had retired from teaching.

On 21^st December 1871 he married Emma Fawcett, a tailor’s daughter and “certified” schoolmistress, at the church of St Stephen the Martyr, Marylebone, London.

Herbert and Emma were to have two sons and two daughters: Edward Percy (1873-1946), Frank Fawcett (1875-1947), Agnes Maud M (b.1882) and Muriel Alice (1887-1969).

By 1881 the family had  moved to 21, Thornhill Square, Islington. It was not so much a square, more a large oval of handsome 1840s Victorian terraces surrounding a central park with St Andrew’s Church (1875) at the north end. On Charles Booth’s poverty map of c.1890 this area is shown as “Middle-class. Well to-do”.

Henry, meanwhile, had undergone another career change and was described as a “clerk(shipping)”.

It seems, however, that there was a change in fortunes. In 1891 Herbert and Emma and their four children were living at 112, Kingsland High Street, Hackney, a shop with living quarters on three floors above in what was certainly a much less tranquil area. Herbert had changed his occupation once again and was listed as “Tobacconist (master)” and Emma was teaching again. Edward and Frank were working as clerks, Agnes was at school and little Muriel was only three. They could afford to employ an eighteen year old live-in domestic servant.

Emma died in 1897 and the family split up soon afterwards. At the time of the 1901 census Agnes was working as a nursery governess in the household of a Stock Exchange jobber in Croydon, thirteen year old Muriel was living with her unmarried brother Edward, a municipal clerk, in Bushey and Frank was a railway clerk, boarding in a household in Bramley, Yorkshire. Henry was living alone. He had lodgings at 230, New Kent Road, a fairly rough area at the time, and his occupation was given as “railway accounts clerk.”

Ten years later Herbert had moved to a much more pleasant street in Peckham: 21, Moncrieff Street. The little Victorian house only had six rooms and was accommodating the landlord (an insurance agent), his wife, son and two daughters and also Herbert and two young printers. Herbert, aged sixty six, was still working as a railway clerk.

Herbert did, however, spend his final years in more comfortable surroundings. The 1921 census shows him living with his son Edward, daughter-in-law Alice, their daughter and two sons at Cowper House, Cowper Road, Berkhamsted, an eight roomed property (excluding kitchen and bathrooms).

Edward was a commuter to the Public Health department of the London County Council where he was a senior clerical assistant. Herbert is shown as a retired goods clerk with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.

Herbert died, aged eighty two, in early 1927.