Dawn: Thank you Dawn! for this very interesting perspective you provided (below) on life in this time period. My GGG uncle was said to have worked in a mill by the age of 8 and was so small that he had to stand all day on a stool. His father was killed in an iron mill accident when the child was 6, and his mother was left with 5 young children under 12 to raise alone. She was described in the 1851 Census as a pauper. I know that one of the children at 13 was a servant, not living at home, and another I think was in an orphan asylum (school), but not sure, given the common DAVIES name. My grandmother's cousin stated that the census did not specifically have to state her condition as "pauper" so that indicated (to her) Ann's very desperate condition. I do know that Ann, b. ~ 1815 could not read and write. One daughter was taken to the US by her husband's younger brother and wife and raise as their own, so poor Ann was forced to say goodby to her "Nellie" age 8, not knowing if she would ever see her again, but also knowing that she'd have a better life with them. How tragic. One by one the Uncle George brought over her other children to Pittsburgh, with only her son Samuel (my GGG GF) remaining in Moxley. Thank you for describing the conditions of the loo and the wash house. I guess I just didn't think about it. We so take things for granted these days! Could you describe what you mean by "cooper up?" I can't imagine Ann and family would have had money for a public bath house, but perhaps son Samuel & family (b. 1838) may have (siblings b. 1865-1880 or so). Questions: * How expensive would a trip to a bath house have been, relative to pay for an iron worker might you imagine? * When might running water/indoor facilities common in the Moxley, Wednesbury, Dudley, Bilston area? (Since my GG GF, b. 1865 Moxley; d. 1947 New Hampshire, US used to collect water daily from the well even as an elderly man, I suspect that was the norm for when he was brought up.) Thanks for the description of the house; I suspect my rellies lived in similar, modest homes, as my grandparents visited cousins in the 1960s and described conditions as modest, relative to theirs. I know a couple had shops in the front of their homes. One sold candy ("humbugs!") (1870s) and another bakery good (1960s). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dawn Webb" <dawnwebb@optusnet.com.au> To: <staffordshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2012 2:33 PM Subject: Re: [STAFFORDSHIRE] Where is: 160 Catherines Cross Foundry Street -- 1871/ and an 11-year old vintner??? >I think the things you describe Marilyn are about normal for the times - my > grandmother also worked in a mill from a very young age and she was born > 1886; my grandfather, her husband, had to stand at meals with all the 9 or > so other children - Mum and Dad sat - they could only afford two chairs in > the entire house. Grandma slept with her siblings - six on one double > bed - > three top, three tail. Five girls one boy. By the time my grandparents > were growing, they did have a legal entitlement and requirement for > education - perhaps three or five years. G grandma, the generation > earlier, > could not read nor write and she died 1942. Grandma said he mother did > not > have the opportunity to ever learn and that she (grandma - and presumably > her siblings, starting 1881 births) had, like me, gone to school. 1901 > census, Grandma and her younger sister were both mill workers. Only one > who > was not was Olga, aged 10 or maybe JUST 11. (Grandma was third youngest > of > six.) > > Shared toilet - in the back yard of several houses - but we are most > likely > talking terrace houses, possibly front and backs too - small in dimensions > and number of rooms - say one loo for every six or so households, outside > wash=house too, rostered which days you could use it. Bath - either het > the copper up or pay and go to the public bath house if there was one, Sat > nights most likely. > > A newish house my g grandfather lived in with about five opr more siblings > and ?Mum and Dad had three rooms - I have been in it! One main room > downstairs with a tiny kitchen and lobby utility room off the back of it, > through which you went these days to the back yard. Stairs ina > cupboard - > and though I did not go upstairs, maybe then two rooms up. Whether they > have > now made two small bedrooms and a bathroom up there, who knows? But more > likely, one larger - still small to my Australian modern eyes - and a > bathroom. No outside buildings in the small back yard these days. And > they > had bought a few more backyards from the neighbours over the 150 or so > years, so it is now bigger and lovely. 1861 census (or 1871) I think it > was > listed as back to back but the old maps and modern show the "footprint" > has > not changed - so, two families would have lived in these two rooms in > effect > - no access to the "back" either - the whole row of the houses, about 40 > or > more in a long line. Talk about crowded! But then, they did not have much > it seems. Or any expectations of things being better, either, possibly. > They would have walked to work - there was and still is! a mill at the end > of the road, perhaps 100-200 yds away. And many more within walking > distance back then, but gone now. I visited there in 2010. > > Dawn (Melbourne Australia)

The copper was something even my mother used till I was teenaged - so, early 1960s. It was a copper - think of a witches' cauldron - set in brick surrounds. Later models were gas fired, but the one I knew had a little wood fireplace set into it. You heated water in it for bath night. There was no plumbed hot water - probably no plumbed water, period, either. So - heat the copper up - get the fire going. I think kids would once have been bathed in the thing, but goodness you would have to be careful not to boil them! I remember Mum's disappointment when the fire went out, too. She would soak the sheets and other cotton whites in the copper overnight, and then go out early in the morning, well before 7am, to light the fire. Come inside, do a few things, get me off to school - in between whipping out to feed it, etc. the water in the copper boiled - and as it boiled, the water bubbled through the washing. Sort of agitator action and very effective - things came really white! Then you ladled the clothes out with a copper stick into wooden troughs - concrete if you were more modern, say 1940s - and the heat from the boiling water and then the cold you put in, meant you could scrub the things well on the corrugated scrubbing board - in the case of the men's work clothes, with a scrubbing brush too. Things were of tough material but still would have worn out. Into the other trough for first t=rinse. After all the washing had been done, it was time to empty the dirty water in trough oine to fill with clean water for the second rinse. Then - the whites went into a rinse with blue added - blue bags used to colour the water - I remember them but my American husband had no idea - and then, dripping almost, out onto the line. Other washing followed - maybe just into hot water, not boiled, depended on the fabric and colour. Things which needed starching should have been dried then starched but Mum said near enough was good enough and she dunked things , well wrong out, into the starch mix as was. No spin dryer, no washing machine, and Mum got a wringer when I was about five which made her life much easier. Grandma was green with envy, saoid mum was VEERY lucky! The washing was hung on clothes lines between two posts, with a pole in the middle to hoist it up when the clothes were on - called a prop. Sadly the clothes lines could, and did, often break and the clean washing fell into the mud - meaning, it all had to be done again. The remaining hot water from the copper was used for scrubbing the floors, the veranda etc - it was the only hot water that could be used. So - a hard day washing, and then, a hard day housework followed straight on. No wonder wash day tea = evening meal was quick and easy - cold meat, bread and jam - more likely dripping - whatever. The floors were done on hands and knees with lots of elbow grease. Newspapers were spread to keep them clean. No wonder shoes were taken off at the door! That all said, my grandparents had a gas hot water service installed and Mum benefitted from that, so as a child, hot water for the bath came from a tap not the copper. Grandma and Da moved to a little fisherman's cottage - back to no electricity, no hws. They did get a phone on a few years later and electricity too - the doctor said it was essential for them, really ripped into the authorities, so it came on within a week of an emergency that saw virtually crippled Grandma running about 200yd in the winter midnight to get to a phone for urgent help. Would have taken a few years otherwise - straight after WWII in effect. We did not get a phone on till I was perhaps 15... and that was suburbia, Melbourne, Australia. We don't know we are alive these days! Remember, what I have said about the washing was done in a wash-house - but one per house, not communal as a few years before in England. There, rosters existed. For cleaning the communal areas too which of course included the toilet. Bad luck if you had lazy neighbours. Dawn It is colder now today - I lit the firestove and things are toasty. It i=has a "wet back" - ie heats the hot water too. But yes, I have all electric everything mod cons - but the firestove is VERY good. I paid a lot to get it and have it installed - but those who have them, love them. Most tradesmen these days have never heard of things like wet backs, hardly know what a fire stove is. As for a copper!! - my son is a bricklayer - time was, they did one per half day. These days the skill has been lost - Peter said he thinks he could nut it out but it would take a week or so! -----Original Message----- From: staffordshire-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:staffordshire-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Marilyn L. Arnold Sent: Sunday, 4 March 2012 11:06 AM To: staffordshire@rootsweb.com Subject: [STAFFORDSHIRE] LIFE in the 1870-1900s Dawn: Thank you Dawn! for this very interesting perspective you provided (below) on life in this time period. My GGG uncle was said to have worked in a mill by the age of 8 and was so small that he had to stand all day on a stool. His father was killed in an iron mill accident when the child was 6, and his mother was left with 5 young children under 12 to raise alone. She was described in the 1851 Census as a pauper. I know that one of the children at 13 was a servant, not living at home, and another I think was in an orphan asylum (school), but not sure, given the common DAVIES name. My grandmother's cousin stated that the census did not specifically have to state her condition as "pauper" so that indicated (to her) Ann's very desperate condition. I do know that Ann, b. ~ 1815 could not read and write. One daughter was taken to the US by her husband's younger brother and wife and raise as their own, so poor Ann was forced to say goodby to her "Nellie" age 8, not knowing if she would ever see her again, but also knowing that she'd have a better life with them. How tragic. One by one the Uncle George brought over her other children to Pittsburgh, with only her son Samuel (my GGG GF) remaining in Moxley. Thank you for describing the conditions of the loo and the wash house. I guess I just didn't think about it. We so take things for granted these days! Could you describe what you mean by "cooper up?" I can't imagine Ann and family would have had money for a public bath house, but perhaps son Samuel & family (b. 1838) may have (siblings b. 1865-1880 or so). Questions: * How expensive would a trip to a bath house have been, relative to pay for an iron worker might you imagine? * When might running water/indoor facilities common in the Moxley, Wednesbury, Dudley, Bilston area? (Since my GG GF, b. 1865 Moxley; d. 1947 New Hampshire, US used to collect water daily from the well even as an elderly man, I suspect that was the norm for when he was brought up.) Thanks for the description of the house; I suspect my rellies lived in similar, modest homes, as my grandparents visited cousins in the 1960s and described conditions as modest, relative to theirs. I know a couple had shops in the front of their homes. One sold candy ("humbugs!") (1870s) and another bakery good (1960s). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dawn Webb" <dawnwebb@optusnet.com.au> To: <staffordshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2012 2:33 PM Subject: Re: [STAFFORDSHIRE] Where is: 160 Catherines Cross Foundry Street -- 1871/ and an 11-year old vintner??? >I think the things you describe Marilyn are about normal for the times - my > grandmother also worked in a mill from a very young age and she was born > 1886; my grandfather, her husband, had to stand at meals with all the 9 or > so other children - Mum and Dad sat - they could only afford two chairs in > the entire house. Grandma slept with her siblings - six on one double > bed - > three top, three tail. Five girls one boy. By the time my grandparents > were growing, they did have a legal entitlement and requirement for > education - perhaps three or five years. G grandma, the generation > earlier, > could not read nor write and she died 1942. Grandma said he mother did > not > have the opportunity to ever learn and that she (grandma - and presumably > her siblings, starting 1881 births) had, like me, gone to school. 1901 > census, Grandma and her younger sister were both mill workers. Only one > who > was not was Olga, aged 10 or maybe JUST 11. (Grandma was third youngest > of > six.) > > Shared toilet - in the back yard of several houses - but we are most > likely > talking terrace houses, possibly front and backs too - small in dimensions > and number of rooms - say one loo for every six or so households, outside > wash=house too, rostered which days you could use it. Bath - either het > the copper up or pay and go to the public bath house if there was one, Sat > nights most likely. > > A newish house my g grandfather lived in with about five opr more siblings > and ?Mum and Dad had three rooms - I have been in it! One main room > downstairs with a tiny kitchen and lobby utility room off the back of it, > through which you went these days to the back yard. Stairs ina > cupboard - > and though I did not go upstairs, maybe then two rooms up. Whether they > have > now made two small bedrooms and a bathroom up there, who knows? But more > likely, one larger - still small to my Australian modern eyes - and a > bathroom. No outside buildings in the small back yard these days. And > they > had bought a few more backyards from the neighbours over the 150 or so > years, so it is now bigger and lovely. 1861 census (or 1871) I think it > was > listed as back to back but the old maps and modern show the "footprint" > has > not changed - so, two families would have lived in these two rooms in > effect > - no access to the "back" either - the whole row of the houses, about 40 > or > more in a long line. Talk about crowded! But then, they did not have much > it seems. Or any expectations of things being better, either, possibly. > They would have walked to work - there was and still is! a mill at the end > of the road, perhaps 100-200 yds away. And many more within walking > distance back then, but gone now. I visited there in 2010. > > Dawn (Melbourne Australia) ****************************** ATTENTION TO ALL:- When replying please remove the details that do not apply to your mail and change the SUBJECT LINE for best useage of ARCHIVED MATERIALS. ------------------------------- ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to STAFFORDSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6935 (20120303) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6935 (20120303) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com

Dawn wrote "Then - the whites went into a rinse with blue added - blue bags used to colour the water - I remember them but my American husband had no idea - and then, dripping almost, out onto the line." Dolly blue bags - we used to get them from the rag and bone man. Another fixture of my childhood that has long disappeared! You can still buy dolly blue here in the UK if you know where to look. Angela -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.927 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/4249 - Release Date: 03/03/12 19:34:00