Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Charlotte Tooms

1959 –05/04/1932

Thrice married

Relatives

Joseph Edmeades (798) — husband

Albert E. Fensome Tooms — husband

Henry Walker (x73) — husband

• Melanie Hilton

Plot x73 Charlotte Tooms, late Walker and Edmeades (née Rance) (1859-1932)

Charlotte was born in 1859 in Millfield, Northchurch to Joseph and Mary Ann (née Pitkin) Rance. Her father was a labourer and she had two older brothers. Charlotte was baptised 14 July that year in St Mary’s, Northchurch.

In 1861 her family was living with her widowed paternal grandmother in Ellesmere Road. Both her mother and grandmother were straw plaiters and her father was employed as a timber carter.

Strangely, Charlotte was baptised for a second time in April 1865, this time at St Peter’s, Berkhamsted.

By 1871 she was living with her parents in Highfield Road, Berkhamsted. Her father was, by then, a sawyer.

She married joiner Henry Walker in December 1879 in Berkhamsted.

In the 1881 census Charlotte and Henry were living with her widowed mother Mary Rance and her young son and two young daughters in Charles Street.

Henry died 5 December 1886 High Street aged 29.

Charlotte married Joseph Edmeades, a former soldier, at Holy Trinity, Wealdstone in May 1888. On 8 September 1888 The Bucks Herald reported the transfer of the licence of The George Inn, 215, High Street, Berkhamsted from Charlotte Walker to Joseph Edmeades.

In 1901 they were still at The George and Joseph’s 16 year old niece Phoebe Knott was a barmaid, as was another 16 year old.

Joseph died 1 July 1910 aged 66, by which time he was the landlord of The Lamb public house. He left Charlotte just under £700.

In 1912 Charlotte married for the third and last time. Her third husband was Albert Edward Fensom Tooms, who, in 1891 was landlord of a pub in Watford.

On August 18 1914 The Bedford Record noted the application by Mr H H Bannister to transfer the licence of the The Harpur Arms to Albert.

Albert died 26 December 1915 at The Harpur Arms, Horne Lane, Bedford. (The pub has now been demolished).

He left £28 (just over £2,500 in 2025) and is buried here with Charlotte’s first husband, Joseph Edmeades.

Charlotte, again a widow, died in Bedford on 5^th April 1932 and was laid to rest with her first husband, Henry

Henry Walker (x73)

1858 –05/12/1886

A joiner and first husband of Charlotte Rance; died age 29 years

Relatives

Charlotte Tooms — wife

• Liz Railton

HENRY WALKER

Henry was born in 1857 and died young, aged 29, in December 1886. He was the eldest child of James and Mary Walker and was brought up on his father’s farm near Hertford. There is no trace of him beyond the 1861Census until he marries Charlotte Rance in Berkhamsted in the last quarter of 1879.

Henry’s father, James, owned Clement’s Farm in Pegs Lane Brickenden (very close to the current Hertfordshire County Hall). He owned the farm jointly with his older brother, William, described in the Census data as James’s partner. Two other brothers (uncles to Henry) worked as “agricultural labourers” on the farm. The 1861 Census also shows that James and his brother employed a “cowman’, another “agricultural labourer” aged 14, and a 16-year-old female “house servant”. At this point Henry has a younger brother James, aged 3 and a younger baby sister aged one. The farm covers 315 acres and is clearly supporting significant numbers of the Walker family in 1861.

Henry is no longer listed as living at the farm in 1871 and the Census entry for his father and uncle’s household suggests that his mother might have died and that his father has remarried a woman called Fanny. There are now two younger children in the household and a further two are listed in 1881.

There is no information about where Henry was living and working after leaving home and meeting Charlotte who was living in Berkhamsted. Presumably the farm near Hertford was not big enough to support the increasing size of the Walker family. It looks likely that Henry moved to live in Charlotte’s widowed mother’s household when he married her. He is there in 1881 in Charles Street Berkhamsted , described as a “joiner” whilst Charlotte is a “dressmaker”.   Her mother, Mary Rance, was widowed and working as a “housekeeper” but described as the “head of household” at this point. Charlotte has two younger sisters and a younger brother. As the youngest was born in 1877, it seems likely that Mary Rance lost her husband around the time that Charlotte married Henry.

After his marriage to Charlotte there is yet again no trace of Henry until his death notice in December 1886. He was only 29 and the cause of death does not seem to have attracted any local press attention.  Charlotte lived for many more years, marrying twice and dying in 1932. All three of her husbands are buried in Rectory Lane but the stories of her husbands and their marriages to her give no further glimpses of the short life of Henry Walker.

Liz Railton

January 2026