Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Jousha (sic) Daniels

Labourer, some time inhabitant of Red Lion Yard, convicted of theft of potatoes and gambling.

Relatives

Martha Daniels — wife

• Christopher Dolton

JOSHUA DANIELS; 1829 -1905

Joshua was born in Berkhamsted in 1829 although he was not baptised until 7^th November 1830. He was the youngest of five children born to John and Elizabeth Daniels. (The spelling of the surname varies in the documentary records between “Daniels” and “Daniells”.) The 1841 census reveals that John worked as limeburner.

The job of a Limeburner was both dangerous and unpleasant. The job involved the production of quicklime which was achieved by first crushing limestone, chalk or sea-shells, No doubt it was the chalk of the Chiltern Hills that was used in this instance. Once crushed, the chalk was heated in a kiln until red hot over the course of many hours. The chalk was converted by this process into quicklime which was used in tanning and dying.

Quicklime can be turned into slaked lime by adding water, which was used to make plaster and mortar for building and when further thinned with water, limewash, or whitewash. Quicklime however reacts violently with water, spitting and spluttering and even, if not careful, exploding. Lime can also be used in manufacture of soap and fertilisation of fields.

If quicklime comes into contact with skin it can cause caustic burns. The kilns burn at high temperatures, so there is a risk of burns and the process produces carbon monoxide which can cause poisoning or even death in sufficient quantities.

Joshua’s mother died in 1831 when Joshua was only two years old and for the majority of his childhood Joshua must have been brought up by his father and older brothers. That changed in 1840 when Joshua was about ten years old, as in that year his father remarried. Joshua’s new stepmother was Ann Bird. She was herself a widow and in 1839 was living in Red Lion Yard. Her husband, John Bird, had died in 1832, leaving her with two young sons, Richard and Harvey Bird. (Richard Bird is himself buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery.) Joshua, at the age of ten, found himself not only with a new step mother, but also two new step brothers. In 1841 Joshua’s older brothers were no longer living in the family home at Gossoms End. The family consisted of John, age 50 years, his new wife Ann, age 45, her sons Richard and Harvey Bird, 13 and 8 respectively aged 11 years and Joshua.

In 1844 Joshua’s father died. Had he not married Ann Bird, Joshua would have found himself an orphan, but we know he continued to live with his step mother as we find him in 1851 living in Castle Street with Ann and members of her extended family. Conditions must have been cramped. Living in the household, together with Ann and Joshua, was also Ann’s son Harvey and her 34 year old step daughter Lydia, together with four lodgers. Joshua was then 20 years old and working as a labourer, an occupation he was to continue for the rest of his life.

In 1848 Joshua found himself appearing at the Easter Quarter Sessions charged along with his brother William with breaking into premises belonging to Joseph Austin and stealing half a bushel of potatoes and a sack.  William pleaded guilty to the theft of the potatoes, but not of the sack. Joshua pleaded not guilty. Evidence was given connecting Joshua to his brother, with whom he was then living. There was also wet clay outside the premises in which the imprints of two pairs of shoes were found. A pair of shoes which Austin had given to Joshua were claimed by Austin to match the imprints and clay had evidently been scraped from the shoes. The shoes did not in fact match the prints left in the clay, but Joshua was nevertheless convicted, the jury recommending him to mercy.  William, who had been in prison four times before, was sentenced to six months hard labour with one week in each month in solitary confinement. Joshua was sentenced to 14 days hard labour of which three days were to be in solitary confinement. Half a bushel of potatoes could not have been particularly valuable and one might surmise that the potatoes were stolen because the brothers were hungry.

Joshua was to find himself in trouble again in 1861, this time for gambling. Joshua and three others were charged with playing “pitch and hustle” on a road leading to Ashridge. “The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England” describes pitch and hustle in the following terms:

“This is a game commonly played in the fields by the lowest classes of people. It requires two or more antagonists, who pitch or cast an equal number of halfpence at a mark set up at a short distance; and the owner of the nearest halfpenny claims the privilege to hustle first; the next nearest entitles the owner to a second claim; and so on to as many as play.

When they hustle, all the halfpence pitched at the mark are thrown into a hat held by the player who claims the first chance; after shaking them together, he turns the hat down upon the ground; and as many of them as lie with the impression of the head upwards belong to him; the remainder are then put into the hat a second time, and the second claimant performs the same kind of operation.; and so it passes in succession to all the players, or until all the halfpence appear with the heads upward.”

A seemingly innocent enough past time, but Joshua and the other players were each fined 10s. 6d. each and 6s. 6d. costs. 

In 1859 Joshua married Martha Horwood. She was 10 years Joshua’s junior and was also born in Berkhamsted. Joshua and Martha had set up home in 1861 in Red Lion Yard and were still living in the Yard ten years later in 1871.  The Red Lion Public House stood on Berkhamsted’s High Street until it was closed in the 1870s.  It stood on the site where Midland Bank stands today. To the side of the pub was a gateway which led into Red Lion Yard. Percy Birtchnell, writing in 1975 as “Beorcham” in the Berkhamsted Review noted that there had been as many as 18 cottages in the yard which were rented to several families. Amongst these were small cottages erected on garden ground, four had been stables and others wooden houses on the property. An article on the Berkhamsted Local History and Museum Society website written by Linda Rollitt describes Red Lion Yard and the poverty of its inhabitants (https://rollitt.co.uk/poverty/). She describes conditions that were overcrowded and insanitary. The Kingston family lived in a house in the yard and between 1870 and 1897 they had 16 children. Four died and ten were sharing the house with their parents. In 1874 typhoid fever broke out in the yard caused by bad drainage and dirty water. In 1886 four houses were reported as “filthy and dilapidated and quite unfit for human habitation. That same year the Sanitary Authority inspector reported that several houses in the yard were overcrowded and orders were made to abate the overcrowding. With the inhabitants living in such cramped and filthy conditions, it is not surprising that disagreements and fights often broke out and there are reports in the Bucks Herald of inhabitants of the yard being brought before the court for breaches of the peace. In 1911 there were still 15 cottages in the Yard, housing 77 people.

At a time when many poorer families in particular had large a large number of children, Joshua and Martha only had one child, a son, William born in about 1870.

By 1881, Joshua and Martha had escaped the poverty of Red Lion Yard and had moved to 21 Cross Oak Road, where they were both to live for the rest of their days. In 1891 their son William had moved on and the couple had taken in a lodger, no doubt to help make ends meet. Ten years later in 1901, the lodger had been replaced by the then 70 year old Ann Horwood, who was working as a launderess. Ann was Martha’s step mother, her father having remarried following the death of his first wife Sarah. Joshua was then age 71 years and still working in the physically demanding job of a labourer, described in the census return as a builder’s labourer rather than the general labourer he had been before. He had little choice but to keep working if he and Martha were to avoid the workhouse. The first state pension was not introduced until 1908. (When introduced it was 5s. a week and was paid in full to individuals aged 70 or more with an annual income of £21 a year or less reducing to nothing at an annual income of £31 a year.  A higher pension of 7s. 6d. was paid to a married man. At the time only one in four people reached the age of 70 and life expectancy at that age was about 9 years.)

Joshua died at the age of 75 in December 1905 and was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery. No memorial or headstone marks his grave today. The burial records reveal that Martha’s step-mother, Ann Horwood, also died in December 1905 at the age of 75. She was also buried in the cemetery on the same day as Joshua, albeit in a different plot.