Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Elizabeth Stratford

1826 –07/08/1900

A straw plaiter when young and later a dairy maid; wife of labourer Mark Stratford

Relatives

Mark Stratford — husband

• Jane Beaty

Plot X221
Elizabeth STRATFORD died 7^th August 1900 aged 74

Also of Elizabeth STRATFORD, wife of the above who passed peacefully away August 7^th 1900 aged 74 years.

Elizabeth EBBS was born in the autumn of 1826 in Slapton, a small farming village in Buckinghamshire and was baptised in the church there on 1^st October 1826. She was the daughter of John, a farm labourer, and Hannah EBBS. The couple had nine children, Elizabeth was the fifth, so their home, Grove Farm must have been a very busy one.

By the time Elizabeth was 13, she had left home, although she was still living in the village and had started work as a straw plaiter. This was a flourishing industry in the Chilterns in the mid-19^th century and could be carried out from home. By the time she was 25 years old, she was living as a lodger in the household of Charles JAMES, the local blacksmith.

Elizabeth had a younger brother David, born when she was 11. David seems to have been the first member of the family to move away from Slapton. He married a publican’s daughter from London and went to live in a modest street off Kensington High Street. He became a coal merchant, and Elizabeth went to London to join him and his wife, Ellen. At this point she describes herself as a nurse so one wonders whether she was there to look after one or other of them. There was no formal nursing profession in 1860. David died when he was only 33.

But a different life beckoned for Elizabeth and it took her back to Slapton. In early 1862, when she was 36 years old, she married a widower called Mark STRATFORD. He was an agricultural labourer, ten years older than her. He and his first wife Sarah had two daughters and had lived in Slapton since their marriage. They were close neighbours of Elizabeth’s family. Sarah had died when she was only 34 and Mark had been left to bring the girls up. He managed on his own, with the help of Sarah’s family but he and Elizabeth decided to marry in early 1862.

Elizabeth and Mark had one child of their own. James Goss STRATFORD was born in early 1868 when his mother was 42 and his father was 52. Meanwhile Mark’s elder daughter Mary Ann married Joseph EDWARDS and the couple lived alongside her father and stepmother in Slapton. They started a family and Mark had six grandchildren born over the next few years.  The families were close and Elizabeth remained in Slapton until after her parents had both died.

Shortly afterwards, in 1881 when young James was 13 years old, the family moved to Berkhamsted for Mark to take up a new job as a farm labourer at New House Farm.  There was work for all of them in Berkhamsted. Elizabeth worked as a dairy maid; Mark’s unmarried daughter Susan worked as a needlewoman and young James found work in an office as a stationer’s assistant. Mark’s grandson Charles Stratford EDWARDS also came with them to Berkhamsted and worked as a houseboy. The opportunities were much greater in a town the size of Berkhamsted than they had been in their tiny Buckinghamshire village.

Ten years later Elizabeth and Mark had moved again. They became part of the community living in their own household at Castle Hill. Elizabeth still had a job as a dairy maid and this time another of Mark’s grandchildren, Minnie EDWARDS, aged 18 was living with them and working as a servant. She was probably employed at Berkhamsted Place where Lady Castletown and her family were in residence.

 By now their son James had moved to London to seek employment there. Initially he lived with his Aunt Susan STRATFORD who had set up home in Bermondsey with Florrie and Charles, her sister’s children.

Elizabeth was widowed in 1893. After this she left Berkhamsted and went to live with the extended family in London. Mary Ann EDWARDS, Mark’s elder daughter was living with her husband Joseph, a butcher, at 24 Hampden Road, Hornsey with three of their adult children. Also part of the household were Susan STRATFORD, Mary Ann’s sister, and James Goss STRATFORD, Elizabeth and Mark’s only son. So Mark’s three children lived together into adulthood with some of his grandchildren. Elizabeth lived with this extended family in London for the rest of her life.

On 7^th August 1900, at the age of 74, Elizabeth died at home and was buried back in Berkhamsted, alongside her late husband on 13^th August. Her probate was handled by her son James Goss STRATFORD, now a Commercial Clerk, and her estate was valued at £125.

James, her only child, went on to have a long and happy life. He married, set up his own home in Hornsey, had a daughter, and went on to become a Company Accountant then Company Secretary before retiring and living until 1952 when he was 84.

So Elizabeth was part of a close, loving family who remained entwined in each other’s lives. The part played by Elizabeth is probably best described by the epitaph on her grave:

“A noble life but written not in any book of fame,
Among the noted ones, none ever saw her name.
For only her own household knew the victories she had won
And none but they could testify how well her work was done.”

Mark Stratford

1816 –24/12/1893

An agricultural labourer

Relatives

Elizabeth Stratford — wife

• Melanie Hilton

Plot x221 Mark Stratford (1816-1893)

Mark was born in 1816 in Ivinghoe Aston and became an agricultural labourer.

He married Sarah Goss in 1837 in Slapton and their daughters Mary Ann (1839) and Susan (1840) were born there.

The 1841 census shows the family were living with Sarah’s parents in Slapton.

Sarah had died by 1851 when Mark was recorded still living in Slapton with his daughters and a housekeeper.

In 1861 he was an agricultural labourer at Hall Farm, Slapton. Both daughters were living with him and employed as “day school teachers”.

Mark married Elizabeth Ebbs in 1862 and James Goss was born in 1868. They lived in Slapton until at least the spring of 1871.

The 1881 census records them at New House Farm, Berkhamsted. Mark was an agricultural labourer and Elizabeth was a dairy maid. At home daughter Susan, a “plain needlewoman”; James Goss, stationer’s assistant and grandson Charles Stratford Edwards (born 1869), a  domestic servant –“ house boy”.

In 1891 the couple were at Castle Hill, Berkhamsted where Mark was employed as an agricultural labourer. Living with them was granddaughter Minnie Edwards, a general domestic servant.

Mark died 24 December 1893, aged 77, at Castle Hill.

Elizabeth survived him until 1900 and is buried here with him.