Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Robert Stafford (776)

01/05/1847 –13/04/1920

Born in Cheshire and worked in cotton mill before becoming a brush maker and moving to Berkhamsted

• Jane Beaty

Plot 776

Robert STAFFORD died 13^th April 1920 aged 72

Martha Ann STAFFORD 3^rd August 1925 aged 77

Robert STAFFORD

Robert STAFFORD was born on 1^st May 1847 in Stalybridge, Cheshire and baptised three weeks later. He was the eldest child of John, an engineer at a cotton mill and Esther STAFFORD.

Stalybridge was a cotton-making town on the outskirts of Manchester with a history of very active working-class movements. By the time of Robert’s birth there was also a huge iron forge in the town, employing over 1,000 men and the arrival of the railway in the year before he was born meant that this once small, quiet town had become an industrial hub. In 1844 it was described as “… multitudes of courts, back lanes and remote nooks arise out of the confused way of building … Add to this the shocking filth, and the repulsive effect on Stalybridge, in spite of its pretty surroundings, may be readily imagined” Friederich Engels.

Robert lived with his parents and siblings in Union Street, Stalybridge but by the age of 14 had already started work in the cotton mill like his father. In 1861 he was working as a cotton weaver.

On the outbreak of the American Civil War in that year, the Stalybridge cotton mills rapidly ran short of cotton. Thousands of operatives were laid off. In October 1862, a meeting was held in Stalybridge Town Hall that passed a resolution blaming the Confederate States of America and their actions in the American Civil War, rather than U.S. blockades of seaports, for the cotton famine in Lancashire. By the winter of 1862–63, there were 7,000 unemployed operatives in the town. Only five of the town’s 39 factories and 24 machine shops were employing people full-time. Contributions were sent from all over the world for the relief of the cotton operatives in Lancashire; and at one point three-quarters of Stalybridge workers were dependent on relief schemes. By 1863, there were 750 empty houses in the town. A thousand skilled men and women left the town, in what became known as “The Panic”.

Perhaps Robert was one of these workers because by the time he was 20 Robert had left the cotton mill and taken up a new trade as a brush maker. On 22^nd April 1867, he married Martha Ann NEWTON, a local girl then the couple left Stalybridge for good. They moved to nearby Ashton Under Lyne and lived there for 15 years or so. Robert worked as a brush maker and Martha brought up their two children, both born in Ashton Under Lyne.

But Robert was clearly ambitious and within a few years the couple moved southwards to Berkhamsted where he established his own business as a brush maker. At the “Great Berkhampstead Industrial and Art Exhibition” opened by Lord Brownlow in May of 1886 Mr Stafford was one of the exhibitors. There were several brush makers in Berkhamsted, including a Mr Nash and Goss Brothers with much of the work carried out by women in their own homes. The brush making industry at its peak employed some 100 townspeople. To a certain extent brush making replaced straw plaiting as a home industry for women. But what was known as “pan work” was done only by men. In the making of brooms, a pan of pitch was kept at a certain temperature and bristles were dipped into the pitch and placed in the holes of the wooden tool.

Robert Stafford ran his own brushworks right in the heart of Berkhamsted on the site of what is now Ashtons Estate Agents.  Here there was a half-timbered house, probably as old as The Court House at the opposite end of Back Lane. Brush making was linked to the traditional local woodware industry where brush backs and brush handles were turned out in thousands.

By 1891, living in Castle Street, Berkhamsted, Robert was an employer and proudly described himself as a brush manufacturer. He seems to have worked with a John IVES and the pair had several employees. So he and Martha had transformed their lives and left behind the “dark satanic mills” of the northern England to run their own business in Berkhamsted.

By 1901 the couple moved to 5 Ravens Lane. Robert retired in his 60s and lived there with Martha for the rest if his life. He died on 13^th April 1920 and was buried four days later in plot 776. Probate was granted on 7^th May to his son John, a hairdresser. His effects amounted to £1,815.

Martha Ann Stafford

1848 –03/08/1925

Wife of brush maker Robert Stafford

• Jane Beaty

Martha Ann STAFFORD

Born in Stalybridge, Cheshire. Martha was born Martha Ann NEWTON, the daughter of John, a tailor and Mary. She was baptised on 10^th September 1848.

John and Mary had at least seven children and Martha was one of the youngest. By the time she was born her older sisters were already working in the cotton mills in the town.

On 22^nd April 1867, when Martha was 18, she married Robert STAFFORD, a brush maker also born in Stalybridge, at their local church. Although she had stayed at school beyond 12 years old, Martha was clearly not well educated and had to sign her marriage certificate with a mark.

Martha and Robert moved to the short distance to Ashton Under Lyne after their marriage and their first child, Jane was born there on 17^th February 1870. Their second child, a son called John was born on 29^th June 1874. Martha may have worked at some time during their marriage because at the 1881 census she described herself as an unemployed cotton weaver.

By 1886 the couple had moved to Castle Street in Berkhamsted and Robert had started his own brush making business. The two children were working in the business as well, Jane as a  
“Brush drawer”, and John as a “Brush finisher”.

Their eldest child Jane married Richard Henry FRANCKLOW, a young man working as a draper’s assistant at a shop in the High Street in 1897 and later went to live in Sunninghill, Berkshire. John left brush-making behind and became a hairdresser.

By 1901 the couple moved to 5 Ravens Lane and lived there for the rest of their lives. Robert retired in his 60s and died in 1920.

Martha lived on as a widow for five years. She died on 3^rd August 1925 and was buried in the cemetery four days later alongside her husband in plot 776. Probate was granted to Jane and John and her effects amounted to £1190.