The Biswell Family
This post card photo was taken outside the Plough Public house looking towards Adeyfield
The Biswell family lived in the row of terraced houses on the left. The Masons Arms, home to the Smith family is the house in the centre of the picture. All the building have been replaced with modern houses except the house on the right in the middle distance.
BISWELL
The Biswell connection with Leverstock Green began in Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire during 1864 the year Henry Biswell was born and baptised that Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, Henry would leave a trail of problems for the places he lived, disappearing from the national census after 1871. As there were not many Biswells and even fewer Henry Biswells he should have shown on the census.
The village of Waddesdon is next to Aylesbury and the local newspaper in Aylesbury in the early 1880s had on a few occasions made reference to a Henry Biswell causing trouble in the town and later in Watford in 1892 a Henry Biswell is sent to jail.
In Leverstock Green Henry met Louisa Bonwick a local girl who was nine years younger, born in the spring of 1874 in Westwick Row to an agricultural family and by the age of seventeen was a general domestic servant to Congregational minister Dan Tatton and his family in Alexander Road, Hemel Hempstead.
The pair married in the village church on 4th November 1895 and in true Victorian tradition their first child Harry, possibly named after his father was born 13 days later, followed 10 months later by John sometimes called Jack on October 11, 1896, both boys were baptised together in Leverstock Green church on 26th September 1897.
Henry sometimes called Harry was employment at one of the local brickworks and never got out of his old ways, as on Christmas eve 1898 along with some friends they are apprehended for trespassing on Westwick Row Farm whilst Ferreting, Harry was fined 10 shillings plus costs, unfortunately Harry was a frequent visitor to the law courts.
In March 1901 Harry attacked a customer who was playing domino's in the Leather Bottle public house, the customer needed to see a doctor after this unprovoked attack. Harry was also fined for obscene language whilst drunk on two separate occasions, he's arrested for being drunk and disorderly on at least 4 separate occasions, sometimes Harry wanted to fight the arresting police constable.
The 1901 census records the family living in Balcony a house with two rooms upstairs and two rooms down stairs in a row of terraced homes just passed the Plough public house. Later in the year a move to Cupid Green took place for a few years before a return to Balcony. On the voting register for 1920 the family lived at number 8 Balcony cottages. When Curtis road was built the family moved to number 16.
During her marriage Louisa give birth to at least 11 children these include, Harry 1895, John 1896, Gertrude 1899, Jessie 1901, Charles 1903, Bessie 1905, Florence May 1908, Dorothy May 1910, Robert 1913, Winifred 1915 and Ellen born one year after John's death almost to the day. Johns girlfriend was named Ellen, and had given birth to his son at the Biswells home in Balcony, perhaps the new child was named after Ellen in John's memory.
Mr Ford the school headmaster noted in his log book at Christmas 1911 that six watches were presented by the vicar Mr Durrant to various children with Gertrude Biswell receiving one. A later entry on 26th October 1914 notes Florence having been knocked down by a cyclist on her way to school and was sent home as she had symptoms that might require medical attention. The school had been occupied by the Queen's Westminster Rifles at this time and the Baptist chapel was taken over as a temporary school.
The Leverstock Green football team had one of these brothers as the goalkeeper during 1913 -14 season
During the First World War, Harry and John enlisted into the army at the very beginning. Both were wounded during 1915 and killed two months apart in 1916. Gertrude worked as a Woman’s land worker and in the spring of 1918 along with her younger sister marched through London in a parade to help with recruitment for the Land Workers. The two sisters were chosen to carry one of six banners in the procession.
If the war had not brought enough heartbreak Harry senior died soon after and with so many young children to feed Louisa would need all her strength to care for them. Harry was buried in the village church on 2nd May 1922 aged 57 years.
Below is the pension paid to Louisa for the deaths of her two sons,
curtesy of the Western Front Association
During the years between the two World Wars the children continued with their lives, with the village church marriage register recording the following for the Biswell family. Gertrude married Tom Coots in 1925, Bessie married Arnold Morton from Chipperfield during 1931, Dorothy married during 1938 to Frank Holloway, Winifred married Harry Fox 1939, Ellen married Ken Glenister during 1941 and Robert during 1942.
Robert served as a soldier in the Second World War, which must have been such a worry for his mother having lost two sons in a war 21 years before.
Louisa lived to a ripe old age, dying in 1959 at the age of 85 years. The changes she had witnessed in Leverstock Green during her lifetime were very dramatic. As a child a walk down Westwick Row would not have encountered any petrol engine vehicles and with only birds flying in the sky. By her death the M1 motorway was being built within a mile of her childhood home and airliners could be seen flying out of Luton on their way to Spain.