12/03/1847 –1941
Domestic servant and later a painter and gardener
Relatives
Research:
Unmarked grave William Fisher (1837-1941)
William was born 12 March 1847 in Berkhamsted to unmarried mother Elizabeth (Betsey) Fisher, a straw plaiter born in Aldbury. Elizabeth already had a daughter, Ann, born in Redbourn in 1835, and a son, Frederick, born in Berkhamsted in 1836.
The 1851 census shows Elizabeth, Frederick and William living in Red Lion Yard. Both Elizabeth and 14 year-old Frederick were straw plaiters, a common occupation for low-income women and children, supplying plait to the straw hat industries of Dunstable and Luton. Also living in the cottage was a male lodger, an agricultural labourer who must have helped supplement the income.
In 1861 Elizabeth and William were lodgers in the home of William Emery, a whitesmith, in Cox Lane (later King’s Road).
In 1866, aged 19, William married Elizabeth Draper, born in Little Gaddesden, and three children quickly followed: William George (1866), Mary Ann (1868) and Kate (1869).
The 1871 census shows them living in Cox’s Lane and William was described as “stable helper” – presumably a kind of under-groom.
Four more little Fishers arrived before the next census: Herbert Arthur (1872), Lewis Harry (1872), Edwin (1877) and Annie Maria (1880).
In 1881 the family were living in Upper Kitsbury Road and William was described in the census as “Gentleman’s servant”. Six of the children were still at home and money must have been tight, especially after Alice Maud was born in 1883 and Frederick Thomas in 1885.
They were still in Kitsbury Road ten years later and William was a general labourer. Six of the children were at home, and one grandchild, but now there were several wages to contribute to the household. Kate was a general domestic servant, Lewis an ironworker’s assistant and Edwin a butcher’s assistant.
By 1901 they had moved to 12, Middle Row and William was a house painter. The three children still at home were all earning – Herbert as a plaster’s labourer, Maud as an assistant in the mantle manufactory and Frederick as an errand boy.
William suffered two bereavements in the next few years. His mother died in 1901 and daughter Annie Maria, aged 25, in 1905.
By 1911 William and Elizabeth were living alone at 16, Gossoms End. Aged 64, he was still working as a house painter.
Elizabeth died in 1917 and more deaths were to hit William – his son Herbert in 1918, his brother Frederick in 1921 and his son Lewis in 1928. At some point William must have found work as a gardener as he is shown as “gardener, retired” in the 1939 register where he was living at 17, Gossoms End next to his recently-widowed son Frederick
William died in Hempstead House, Hemel Hempstead, in June 1941, aged 94, a remarkable age considering what a tough life he must have had.
His brother Frederick and his daughter-in-law Elsie, wife of son Frederick, both lie in this cemetery.
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