Old Fish Street to Berrington Square - November 2005
Genealogy has become one of the most popular pastimes - aided by the Internet - in an age when our ancestors seemed to have a sort of stability lacking in today's more mobile and fragmented society.My particular interest has been in tracing those who have previously inhabited the houses I have lived in. "Remembering those who have trodden this place before" as a country Vicar termed it.
Many Town Centre houses have a long history, and Shropshire Archives have a wonderful cornucopia of sources to help. Census returns, Poll Books, Burgess Records, Newspaper collections and Parish Records are only a few of the researcher's tools. The staff is informed and helpful, and Shropshire Family History Society, who has collected many records on computer, is available on certain half days in the Hobbs room, next to the Public Library (hobbsroom@sfhs.org.uk). There are also helpful books and occasional courses on the subject
Our own house is a small and modest late-Georgian building; never very grand; mostly tenanted and, in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries, occupied by landladies taking in lodgers. In the 1920's it became a Hairdressers (specialising in Marcel Waves) then was divided into flats, returning to a single dwelling only in 1983. Some of the oldest and most historic houses may even have had Closure Orders imposed on them by 20th century Public Health zealotry at this time.
We are fortunate in having our original Deeds, which are a mine of useful information, buried in legal verbiage. Sadly, the Land Registry only requires the most recent conveyances, and many early historic Deeds have been destroyed by solicitors requiring storage space. If you have your Deeds, you are as fortunate as genealogy-seekers with an unusual name. You might even consider vesting them in the Archive Centre to benefit future researchers.
Our Deeds, for instance, show that when our house was first sold, in 1855, it fetched £275, rising to £290 "of lawful British Money" in 1862. It still cost only £450 in 1921, which puts present house-price inflation in perspective.
The Deeds begin with a land sale by auction in 1816 from the famous and historic Shrewsbury Jones family. There follows desperate pressure to complete the transaction from the Will of a dying tailor, aged 31, to ensure his wife inherits.
Several lease and re-lease transactions later, involving farmers, surgeons and solicitors, who probably lent money before the advent of Building Societies - and who have all provided a distraction to trace - the land was bought by James Clayton, our next-door neighbour, variously described as a Yeoman or Waiter. It includes Warehouses, Stables and Gardens, on which he erects his own house.
He is a supreme example of 19th century 'Build to Let'. The Poor Law Records show "the four houses" paying a partial Poor Rate in 1834, hence dating our house. In the Census of 1851 Mr Clayton is described as "Proprietor of Houses", becoming "Gentleman" in Trade Directories and on his Burial Record in 1855. Along the way he gathers a public house on Wyle Cop and Gardens in Kingsland. He is a good example of Victorian upward mobility.
Mr Clayton's Will, and those of others who actually lived in our house, are endlessly fascinating. The Archive Centre has copies from all those people who died in Shropshire between 1858 and 1928. Earlier ones are held at Lichfield.
It is humbling to reflect the value of 'wearing apparel'; 'featherbed mattresses and bolster cases', and 'the tin box in my closet' which figure in the Estate of my predecessors. Having learnt, but failed to understand the significance of the Married Women's Property Act, at school, I appreciated: "Bequests to any female shall be received and enjoyed free of marital control"!
Occasionally small sums are left to the servants, who figure in even modest households. From Census information they seem to have been mainly very young Welsh girls. They must have cooked in the cellar; carried slops from the second floor, and coal up from the yard. (Coalhouse and privy shown on an 1882 plan in the Deeds.) Not an enviable life.
Spasmodic research has found some of my nineteenth century predecessors. By chance, the Shrewsbury Chronicle 1941 War Diary contained a twentieth century cameo. A baby, one or two weeks old, was left crying on our doorstep, with clean clothes but no note. He was taken to the R.S.I. Something, perhaps to be followed-up by one of my successors?
Liz Simblet