Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Sarah Allam

21/05/1811 –1886

A straw plaiter who was widowed young and left with seven children to rear

Relatives

Sarah Foskett — daughter

Joseph Foskett — other

• Melanie Hilton

Unmarked grave Sarah Allam (née Wharton) (1811-1886)  

Sarah was born 21 May 1811 in Bovingdon, the daughter of Joseph Wharton (or Warton), a labourer born in Tring and Martha (née Preston) born in Bovingdon.

Sarah was baptised in the Box Lane Independent Meeting House in Hemel Hempstead on 19 August 1821 along with her four siblings. Probably her parents had recently joined the Chapel congregation and the fact that none of the children had been baptised was rapidly remedied.

She married Joseph Allam, an agricultural labourer, in Hemel Hempstead on 8 February 1831. Both signed with their mark.

Emma was born in 1832, Joseph in 1837, James in 1839 and Henry in 1840, all in Hemel Hempstead. In the 1841 census they were living in Popes Lane, Hemel.

Lucy was born in 1844 and Sarah in 1846, but Joseph died in October 1848, never to see their son Charles who was born the next year.

Life must have been very hard for Sarah, left with seven young children to bring up. In the 1851 census she was living in the High Street, Hemel Hempstead, and was earning a meagre income as a straw plaiter for the hat makers of Luton and Dunstable. Joseph, James and young Henry were employed as “letter type makers”, presumably for a local printer. It cannot have been skilled work, given the ages of the boys (14, 11 and 9) and was therefore unlikely to have paid very much. Emma was away from home, probably working as a servant.

By 1861 there were rather more wage packets coming in to the household, now living in Union Street. Sarah and daughter Lucy were plaiting and James was a “blocker of bonnets” – steaming the straw bonnets to hit over wooded hat blocks in the correct size and shape. Henry was a stableman and Charles a “mill boy”. Emma had married George Parsons, a gunner in the Royal Artillery and they were also in the house.

Sarah jnr, aged 15, was a live-in servant in Hampstead.

Ten years later both Sarahs were living in Cross Street, Hemel Hempstead and both were working as straw plaiters,. Sarah jnr. married Joseph Foskett, a carpenter, in Hemel later that year.

Sarah went to live with the Fosketts in Berkhamsted and was recorded there at their home in the High Street in 1881. She died there in March 1886, aged 74.

Sarah and Joseph Foskett lie in plot x72.