Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Sarah Jane Delderfield

04/12/1864 –1932

Spent early life in the workhouse before becoming a domestic servant

• Melanie Hilton

Unmarked grave Sarah Jane Delderfield (1864-1932)

Sarah was born 4 December 1864 in Tring to labourer John Delderfield and his wife Sarah (née Wilkinson) and was baptised 3 November 1867 in Tring.

In April 1871 the family was in Berkhamsted Union workhouse: John and Sarah and all but one of their children Henry (10), Sarah Jane (7), Mary (4) and Ernest (1). (The eldest son, James, was employed as a farm servant in Wiggington.) There is no indication of what brought them to that necessity. John is described as a farm labourer and Sarah as a straw plaiter. All the children had been born in Tring except for Ernest, born in Berkhamsted.

It seems likely that Sarah Jane is the Sarah Delderfield who was at the centre of a row at the National School in March 1876. A Mr Venn, whose daughter was a class monitor, wrote an angry letter to the Hemel Hempstead Gazette stating that his daughter Isabella had been greatly distressed by the treatment of Sarah Delderfield who had been beaten and that Isabella had been unfairly disciplined for giving Sarah a slice of bread and butter. He stated that the headmistress had beaten Sarah so severely for some offence that other girls were in tears. Sarah apparently lived in the Workhouse and, when the teacher said that she must remain in school until ten that night, dinner was sent to her which the teacher refused to allow her to eat. Isabella had given her a slice of bread and butter from her own packed lunch and this had so angered the teacher that she was sent home and told she would not be re-admitted until she apologised.

Mr Venn received short shrift from the School Board about the matter and the newspapers have no more information about the outcome, or what Sarah’s offence had been.

In 1881 Sarah was a general servant in the household of “Cowkeeper and grocer” Robert Watts and his family in Hayes, Uxbridge.

In 1891 Sarah, described in the census as “Invalid”, was living with her brother James, his wife and his five children in Wiggington. He was a farm labourer, his wife a straw plaiter and they also had two borders, one an invalid, the other a retired nurse. It almost seems as though they were running a little nursing home.

In 1911 James with three of his children and Sarah lived in the High Street, Northchurch. Sarah was described as a “day worker” but her exact occupation was not given. Perhaps she was a charwoman.

In 1921 Sarah was a boarder in the home of widow Elizabeth Delderfield and her daughter. Their relationship is not known. Sarah was a “general domestic” employed by a Mrs Brown.

She died in the Union infirmary in November 1932.