Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

John Popple (875)

23/09/1847 –26/01/1900

A shoemaker who married a Berkhamsted girl and settled in the town; became involved in civic life

Relatives

Elizabeth Popple (875) — wife

Edward Popple (875) — son

• Jane Beaty

John POPPLE was born on 23^rd September 1847 in of Deeping St James in the south of Lincolnshire. The village lies on the River Welland, a busy trading route in the 19^th century, although transport was changing fast at this time with the opening of a railway station the year after John was born. 

John was the 4^th child of John and Mary POPPLE and his father was a shoemaker.  John senior had been born in Northamptonshire, the centre of English shoemaking, so that was presumably where he learnt his trade, which he passed on in due course to his son. John’s mother Mary (nee WRIGHT[2]) was a native of Deeping St James. The couple went on to have five more children after John, so he grew up at the centre of a large family.

At some point after he finished his education, John left Lincolnshire for Berkhamsted

In January 1877, at the age of 29, John married Elizabeth LOVETT, a young woman from a Berkhamsted family. By this time his job was described as a “boot closer”. So he had followed his father into the shoe making trade and was employed in stitching together all the parts of a shoe upper. The couple soon set up home in Berkhamsted and started a family. They went on to have seven children, of whom six survived to adulthood and lived long lives.

By 1881 the family were living at Provident Place (now Waterside) at the bottom of Holliday Street. By 1891 they had moved to 71 Victoria Road where they lived for the rest of his life.

John was an active participant in the life of the Berkhamsted community. He was a leading member of the Berkhamsted Working Men’s Club, founded in 1869, serving on the committee for many years. The club was part of the temperance movement of the 19^th century and promoted total abstinence from alcohol. They had premises in Holiday Street, where there was a club room “provided with many daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, bagatelle and other games”.[3] The club was described as “a genuine club for working men and managed by them with very little interference from other classes”.[4] The club did not have a licence to serve alcohol so the point was clearly made that it was for social improvement and education of the members.

John was also instrumental in establishing a hospital fund in 1890 to support West Herts Infirmary. He was on a committee organising collection boxes in local shops.[5] He also served on the annual Berkhamsted Castle Fete organising committee.

John and Elizabeth clearly valued education and ensured that all their six children were as well educated as their means allowed. Three of their children became teachers, the most notable being Edward POPPLE who became the Head of Victoria School. Their youngest son, Edward, became a church minister. That was an impressive achievement from parents of such modest beginnings.

John died in 1900, aged 52. And is buried in Plot 875. When his widow Elizabeth died 36 years later, she was buried alongside him.

Elizabeth Popple (875)

14/10/1853 –03/11/1936

A domestic servant who married shoemaker John Popple

Relatives

John Popple (875) — husband

Edward Popple (875) — son

• Jane Beaty

Plot no 875                           Elizabeth POPPLE, died 03/11/1936, aged 83
                                                  John POPPLE, died 26/01/1900, aged 52

Elizabeth POPPLE

Elizabeth POPPLE
(described as “Grandmother Popple”[1])

When Elizabeth was born on 14^th October 1853 her mother Rachel LOVETT was 25 years old and living at 35 Collier Street, Clerkenwell, London. The baby’s birth certificate does not show a name for the father.

Elizabeth’s mother Rachel had been born into a Berkhamsted family living in modest circumstances at Prospect Place. By the time she was 23 she was living as a domestic servant in the High Street house of a linen draper. But at some point, during the next couple of years Rachel had moved to London. One can only speculate as to the reason for the move – perhaps it was simply to have the baby away from her hometown, or perhaps she had taken up another domestic post. Whatever the reason, Elizabeth was born into difficult circumstances.

But matters improved. Rachel moved back to Berkhamsted and in 1860 she married Joseph BLUNT, a carpenter from Whelpley Hill. They set up home in Highfield Road, Berkhamsted. The couple went on to have 5 children. But only 18 months after she had her last child, Rachel died in 1871, aged only 43, leaving all 5 of her younger children under the age of 10. She is buried in Rectory Lane cemetery, Plot 47.

By the time of her mother’s death Elizabeth, aged 17, had left home and was employed as a general servant in the household of an upholsterer/ironmonger called Ezra Miller, living in the High Street. Perhaps she stayed in that post after her mother’s early death or perhaps she helped her stepfather to manage her half-siblings.

When she was 23 in 1877 Elizabeth married John POPPLE, a boot closer born in Lincolnshire. By the 1881 census they were living in Provident Place (now Waterside) at the bottom of Holliday Street, Berkhamsted. Elizabeth and John went on to have seven children, of whom six survived to adulthood and lived long lives. Their first son, John died aged four, but Edward, Elsie, Alice, Harry, Herbert, Winifred all thrived. By 1891 the household at 71 Victoria Road must have been very busy. John’s trade as a boot closer would probably have meant that he worked away from home in a small premises with other artisans. His job was to stitch together the parts of a shoe upper.

John POPPLE died in January 1900 at the relatively young age of 52. Fifteen months later Elizabeth, at the age of 47, and now a widow, was living at 8 Victoria Road with her oldest son Edward[2] who was by then a teacher, her second son Harry, a builder’s clerk and her two youngest children. Her two other daughters, Elsie and Alice, were living across the road at 9 Victoria Road with their great-aunt Mary LOVETT, aged 82 and living “on her own means”. The girls were both teachers, like their eldest brother. Also living in that household as a lodger was a lady called Miss May LUCOCK, the head mistress of the Girls’ National School. So education was clearly very important within the family.

Ten years later, in 1911 the family was still together. By now they were living in a house called Sunninghead[3] in Charles Street. Elizabeth is still described as the Head of the Household and her six unmarried children are all with her. Edward, the eldest at 31, was by now the Headmaster of Victoria School, Elsie, aged 29 was also described as an Elementary School teacher, probably also at Victoria School. Alice, aged 27 was a “teacher of cookery” so possibly at a senior school. Harry and Herbert, by this time in their twenties were both working as clerks, one in the paper making and one in the insurance industry. Elizabeth’s youngest child (Winifred) Nancy was a 13-year-old schoolgirl.

I think we can assume that there was a modest income coming to the family by this time and having a cookery teacher amongst them would have been a benefit to them all.

After 1911 the family did start to branch out. Edward became a teacher of great note, married in 1919 and had two children. He spent the rest of his life as the Head of Victoria School.

Herbert, Elizabeth’s youngest son, joined the army in November 1915 and was discharged in July 1917 with a gunshot wound, sustained in France, which made him unfit for war service. He was discharged to his mother’s home at Sunninghead, Charles Street. In later life he became a church minister.

Elsie married in 1918, Alice the cookery teacher never married, nor did her sister Winifred or brother Harry. By the 1921 census Elizabeth was no longer described as the Head of the Household. This was 35-year-old Harry, working as a clerk at John Dickinsons in Apsley, and still living at Sunninghead, with his mother and his two unmarried sisters Alice and (Winifred) Nancy.

Elizabeth died at the age of 83 on 3^rd November 1936 and is buried alongside her husband, John. She had lived as a widow for 36 years after his death.

Edward Popple (875)

1879 –18/08/1960

Headmaster, Victoria Boys’ School, musician, artist and founder member of the Local History Society

Relatives

Elizabeth Popple (875) — mother

John Popple (875) — father

• Jenny Sherwood

Edward Popple was born on 22nd April 1879, in Provident Place, Berkhamsted, the second son of John and Elizabeth Popple. John was a boot closer by trade. Neither he, nor his wife, Elizabeth, was a native of Berkhamsted. John was born in Lincolnshire and Elizabeth in Clerkenwell. They did, however, marry in Berkhamsted, in the spring of 1877.

We know little of Edward’s early childhood. He was educated almost certainly first at Chapel Street Infants’ School and subsequently at Victoria Boys’ School, from whence he progressed to Berkhamsted School. On finishing his education, Popple returned to Victoria Boys’ School, where he was to remain for 48 years, first as an assistant teacher, and finally as its Headmaster, a post he was to hold for 36 years. At the time of the 1901 census the family was living at 8, Victoria Road, and his mother was a widow. Edward was the eldest of the family at home, working   as an assistant master, and his younger brother, Harry, aged 15, was a builder’s clerk. The two youngest members of the family, Herbert and Winifred, were respectively nine and three years old. Edward married Jane Prentice in the September quarter of 1919. The couple had two daughters, Elizabeth and Jean.

Even as a comparatively young man Edward was held in highest esteem, as indicated by evidence given before a tribunal, reported in the Gazette on 4th March 1917.

“The Managers of Victoria Church of England Schools appealed for total exemption of Edward Popple, the headmaster, (from military service). Mr R.A. Norris, one of the Managers, stated that the school contained 200 boys and they claimed that the Headmaster as such was engaged in work of national importance and he had no doubt a man holding such a position in France or Germany would be considered doing work of the greatest importance. He had been engaged at the same school for 17 years and for 2 years had held the head position.” 

The appeal was backed up by Mr. Charles Henry Greene, Headmaster of Berkhamsted School. He stated that Victoria School was one of the largest in the neighbourhood (the next he believed was in St. Albans) and it was a matter of extreme national importance that the boys of the future should receive good training. The Managers would never be able to find anybody to carry on the school with the proper attention it required. The tribunal granted a six months’ exemption initially, which was later presumably extended, as Popple remained as Headmaster.

It was above all for his work with the boys that the Rector paid tribute to Edward Popple at a special presentation ceremony in May 1947, to mark Popple’s retirement in December 1946.

“As teacher and Headmaster he had not merely given instruction but had opened youthful minds and equipped the boys to seek and obtain knowledge, to use the abilities God had given them to make sure of knowing what was worthwhile. That was real education.” 

Four Old Boys, Messrs. W.S. Sear, C. Young, J.R. Harrowell and R. Glenister reminisced of happy schooldays, at the ceremony in Victoria School Hall”.

Something of this was reflected in Popple’s reply, when he spoke happily of his long association with the school and of pleasant memories, the school garden, the flowers, the musical festivals, the loyalty of the staff, and especially the boys, hundreds and hundreds, so many he could not recall the names of some of them. His boys had gone out all over the world, taking with them something of the character and ‘esprit’ of Victoria School. He was grateful and proud to have had some part in their make-up.

Yet it is not just as a long-serving and dedicated headmaster that Edward Popple is remembered. He was a man of great versatility: artist, musician, conductor, naturalist, horticulturalist, with an interest in the history of the town and a love for the countryside around Berkhamsted. He also gave much time and thought to public service, notably on the Urban District Council, of which he was Chairman from 1945-1947.  He was a founder member and Chairman of the Berkhamsted & District Local History Society, Chairman and Secretary of the Berkhamsted Arts & Crafts Society, President of Victoria Old Boys’ Association, Chairman of Berkhamsted Building Society, Clerk of the Bourne Educational Foundation and Salter’s Charity, an active member of the Citizens Association, BAODS, the Musical Festival and other local organisations. For many years he was a member of St. Peter’s Church Choir: indeed, a man of many parts and also a friend to many!

Edward Popple died on 18th August 1960, in Withington Hospital, Manchester, aged 81. He had moved to Bowdon, Cheshire in 1958 to be near his daughter, Elizabeth. His name lives on, not only in the many musical and concert programmes we have among our archives, but in his very fine paintings and drawings of bygone Berkhamsted that still remain today. He is buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery in the town which he loved so much.