Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Annie Pitkin

d.15/10/1931

Straw Plaiter from Markyate before marrying and settling in Berkhamsted

Relatives

William Johnathan Pitkin (777) — husband

Rachel Pitkin — daughter

• Melanie Hilton

Annie Pitkin (née Lee)

Annie Lee was born 1844 or 1845, the daughter of  William Lee, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Charlotte. Various census records give her place of birth as Markyate Street (now simply Markyate) and Flamstead. The villages are next to each other on the historic Watling Street where a finger of Hertfordshire emerges from the Chiltern Hills and protrudes into Bedfordshire.

By 1861, when she was only seven, Annie was working as a straw plaiter, alongside her mother and three older sisters. Like many families in the area they were producing the fine straw plait sold to the hat makers of nearby Luton. Although this might seem a relatively pleasant occupation, like lace making, in fact it was potentially very dangerous as the plaiters moistened the straws between their lips, ingesting fine splinters in the process. Many developed fatal lung disease as a result. It was also low paid – typical ‘women’s work’ – and the plaiters had to work long hours to make a living at it. The family lived in the unappetising-named area Black Slough and in addition to the four girls there were two younger boys.

By April 1871 they had moved to the pleasanter-sounding area of Gill Hill on the boundary of the two parishes. Annie, unmarried, was living at home and was now a ‘hat sewer’, probably employed on piece-work for the Luton hat makers.

On 17^th June 1871 she married William J. Pitkin at Luton. His mother was also a straw plaiter and his family was from Frithsden, just off the road from Berkhamsted to Luton which crosses Watling Street at Markyate. This straw plait connection may have been how the two met.

The couple settled in Berkhamsted and by 1881 Annie had given birth to six children, five of whom – Ernest, Frank, Amy, Fanny, Rachel and Henrietta – survived into adulthood.

Despite the large family she also appears to be running a boarding house at the home, 5, Mill Street, formerly The Fish public house. At the time of the census had three young unmarried men as lodgers. William was working as a plumber. In 1882 their last child, Walter, was born.

The family moved to 24, Cross Oak Road where William died in August 1919.

Annie passed away 15^th October 1921.

William Johnathan Pitkin (777)

1850 –31/08/1919

Born in Frithsden, became shopworker in London before returning to Berkhamsted to work as a plumber.

Relatives

Annie Pitkin — wife

Rachel Pitkin — daughter

• Melanie Hilton

William Johnathan Pitkin (1850-1919)

William J Pitkin was born in 1850 in Frithsden, the son of Jonathan Pitkin, an agricultural labourer, and Eliza (née King). He was not baptised until 25 July 1852 at St Lawrence, Nettleden where he was recorded as William Jonathan. The more unusual spelling of his second name as “Johnathan” is clearly the one he used himself as it appears on the 1911 census, which he completed, and on his grave.

In the March 1851 census one year old William is living in Frithsden with his parents, four sisters and one brother but, tragically, his father died only nine months later at the age of thirty nine and was buried at Nettleden on 26^th December.

The older children seem to have moved to live with other relatives because, by the 1861 census, only William, aged eleven, was with his mother who was working as a straw plaiter to support them. (By 1871 Eliza was living with her daughter Emma, married to carter James Rance.)

William’s life must have changed very greatly when he moved from a rural hamlet to the heart of fashionable London. In April 1871, at the age of twenty, he was working as a ‘shopman’ for Henry Cane, grocer and cheesemonger, at 5, King Street, St James’s. On 17th June that year he married Annie Lee, of Flamstead, in Luton and they were living in Berkhamsted by 1872.

Son Ernest was born there that year, followed by Frank (1874), Amy (1875), Fanny (1876), Rachel (born and died 1878) and Henrietta (1879)

At some point between April 1871 and April 1881 William had switched careers to the  plumbing trade and by April 1881 gave that as his business. By then he and Annie were living in Berkhamsted at 5, Mill Street in what was still referred to as The Fish public house, although nobody appears to be a licensee. Instead it is being run as a lodging house with three young unmarried male lodgers. William and Annie’s seventh child, Walter was born in 1882.

The family moved to 24, Cross Oak Road where William lived for the rest of his life.

Frank became a painter and plumber, Henry and Walter, clerks. Henrietta did not marry and remained with her parents.

William died on 31^st August 1919, aged sixty nine, survived by Annie and six of their seven children.

Their son Walter (1882-1945) is buried in plot 283.