Alfred Margrett
Ancestral line – Alfred 1867, George 1829, John 1796, John 1771, Thomas 1732, Thomas 1711, Thomas 1682, Thomas 1658..............Family Tree number 18
Born: 30NOV1867 at Coombe Hill in the registration district of Tewksbury
6th of 8 children of
Father: George Margaretts (a 'plural' mis-spelling in the records) born about 1829
Mother: Maria Davis born about 1835
Alfred Married: 13JUL1902 in Leigh, Gloucestershire
Alfred's Spouse: Rosetta Annie Barnfield born in 1881
Alfreds' 8 Children: Rosetta Annie 1903
Edith W May 1904
Violet Maria 1905
Alfred Cecil 1907
Alexander Clifford 1909
Ivy Maria 1910
George Charles 1911
Herbert Henry 1914
Alfred Died: 1947 aged 79 at Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales
Here is a man whose life was long and hard, in a time when infant deaths were familiar. Alfred married late in life at 34, was given eight children by his wife, but lost two of them as babies, and whose wife died soon after their last child. He then spent 32 years as a widower caring for his family.
Coombe Hill, where Alfred was born in 1867, is a hamlet on the west side of the main road running north and south between Gloucester city and Tewksbury. It is three miles (5km) south of Tewksbury. Unusually, there is a canal which runs easterly from the River Severn on the west up to and ending beside a wharf at Coombe Hill and the main road. It looks to be 2 ½ miles (4km) long and might have been to bring coal up from Gloucester docks by barge and then on by road to the north. Or, it may have been built to carry away the reeds for roofing which were cropped on the marshlands in the open flat land beside the canal.
Whereas in the city of Gloucester the railway had already brought great changes and opportunities for employment by the 1860's, Coombe Hill was a very small community having no variety of employment on offer. Indeed, his father (George 1829 whose life story is recorded in this collection) was a traditional farm labourer, who was born a short distance away in Elmstone Hardwick. His mother, Maria, was born only a mile away in the parish of Leigh to the south. We see an agricultural working family with eight children. As already mentioned, Alfred will also marry, and have eight children.
Alfred being the sixth child with his oldest sister 12 years his senior and two more siblings yet to be born, lived in a home which must have required early training in helpfulness. By the age of three, Alfred and his family are already back in his mother's parish of Leigh and his father aged 40, still working on the land. Alfred is eight years old when his 2 year-old brother William dies in 1875. And he is eleven when he goes with his family to the wedding in 1878 of his brother Charles aged 23.
1881 sees Alfred aged 14, having left school, and like two of his siblings and his father, employed as a farm servant. Five of his siblings, some younger, are not at home suggesting the pressure of supporting a family have caused them to be elsewhere. In the June of 1888 when Alfred has reached the age of maturity (21 years old then) there is another family wedding. This time it is brother Henry who is 26. In 1889 the family suffers the loss of it's head, George, who dies aged only about 60. Alfred is 22 and would have been a support to his mother.
Perhaps displaying the difficulties of sparse communities in the countryside, Alfred is aged 34 before he marries in 1902 to Rosetta Annie aged 20. They marry in the parish church of Leigh. Rosetta's father is a labourer but none of the parents are recorded as witnesses. Instead James Davis, perhaps Alfred's mother's brother, and Lucy Clotta Barnfield, possibly the bride's sister sign the marriage register. The marriage is in July which possibly gives a glorious Summer's day in which to celebrate. The word 'honeymoon' had probably not been invented, and very likely there would be no holiday from work in the days after Alfred and Rosetta got married. But, counting the months, their first child might have been conceived in the days just after the wedding. Rosetta Annie, named in honour of her mother, was born in April 1903 in Elmstone Hardwick, Alfred's father's village. About a year before this happy union, Alfred must have supported his brother Henry in 1901 when Henry's wife had died at a young age after only 12 years of marriage. But apart from that, life in the Gloucestershire village of Elmstone Hardwick grind on with daily work.
Then, possibly in 1905, something moved Alfred and his family from Gloucestershire to Wales. This is a removal of some 80 miles from just north of Cheltenham to just north of Cardiff. It was a huge upheaval. It may have been for employment, but must have been something vital perhaps in the support of his family for Alfred to move everyone this far.
Alfred's widowed brother Henry marries a second time in 1905, but in another Gloucestershire village called Tuffley. Alfred and Rosetta are just giving thanks for the births of the first three of their children. Were they able to go to the wedding in Gloucester?
It's 1907 when their fourth child arrives and is called after his father. But life is not settled and comfortable in Pontypridd when Violet aged 3 dies. We don't know why at this stage but infant death, as has already been said, was not unfamiliar. Alexander their fifth child arrives in January 1909, with Alfred aged 42, and again, the hardship of their existence might be demonstrated when their sixth child, Ivy Maria, is born and dies in days.
The demands of looking after a family of 4 surviving children are increased as a new baby called George Charles arrives in 1911 and Herbert Henry is born in 1914 just as war is about to be declared. And then in 1915, with the war taking loved ones away to fight, Alfred's life is turned upside down with the death of Rosetta, his wife. He has six living children aged between one and twelve years. How can he cope? Since he never re-married, Alfred is plainly of strong stock. His own large-family childhood must have shown a family working together to get by. And so, Alfred and his children have to do just that.
From 1891 the UK authorities had been including in the Census Returns a requirement for households to declare how many rooms were available in each home. Obviously excluded in the count were sculleries, landings, closets, and, interestingly, bathrooms. The purpose of this once-in-ten year survey was to assess overcrowding, especially in industrial towns. Each Census return therefore will tell you the number of rooms for the family including kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms. In 1921, Alfred, now six years a widower and claims he is aged 48. This is the usual untruth that many people engaged in, perhaps from vanity or in the belief that it would protect themselves somehow, because Alfred is really aged 53 years 7 months.
But, here in 1921, as a real expression of caring fatherhood, he is looking after his four sons, Alfred aged 13, Alexander aged 12, George aged 10 and Herbert aged 6. That could really be a handfull? He has help. In 40 Aberdale Road, Blaenllechau, Rhondda, Glamorganshire, a property of 3 rooms, he has Anna Roser, classed as a "boarder" but nevertheless engaged in 'home duties' perhaps instead of paying rent, as she helps with the boys. 3 rooms suggests crowded bedrooms for the boys. Living elsewhere are Rosetta aged 18 and Edith aged 17, with daughters Violet having died in 1908 and Ivy in 1910. .
The next family event we see is nine years later when in November 1924, his eldest child (called after her mother), Rosetta aged 21 gets married. Maybe she and her new husband live with Alfred and she continues to look after her siblings. Another 8 years pass before Alfred sees his second child, Edith, marry aged about 30. This may tell us that it was instead Edith who took on the household when their mother died. The family remains firmly established up to this time in Pontypridd.
In September 1939, the nation is struggling with the consequences of war having been declared against Germany, and in a matter of weeks an alternative to the National Census takes place. It requires to record the address of every property where anyone is lodged, their full names, date and year of birth, marital status, and occupation. Here we see Alfred living at 5 Baptist Square, Ferndale, Rhondda, Glamorgan, which is the dwelling of Walter aged about 36 and who hews coal at the coalface locally. Is Alfred a lodger, paying rent, at the age of 72 or is he a relative taking advantage of a spare room?
Alfred himself is aged 73 in 1940, a year after the Second World War has broken out. We do not know why yet, but perhaps Albert's three sons were signing up for the armed forces, and for that reason all three are married in the same year. What joy and anguish may have been experienced? Herbert Henry is the youngest at 26, Alexander Clifford next at 31, with Alfred Cecil the eldest aged 33. This was not one big family wedding of three brothers, because the first and last were married in Coventry and Alexander in Pontypridd.
One more example of a possible tragedy. Alfred, now aged 79 or 80, and his son Alexander Clifford aged 38 and married only 7 years, both die in the first three months of 1947. Did they both die at the same time? Is it a road traffic accident that kills them both together? We have yet to find out. One tragic consequence is that Alexander leaves two orphans and a widow. Another consequence is that by just a year Alfred misses the marriage of his son George in Coventry. The family lines continued in Coventry.
None of the life of Alfred appears to have been published previously before the above record was created.
None of the Margrett Magazines from 1986 to 2012 included any of his experiences and therefore those experiences were not previously recorded in the public domain through the magazines deposited at the British Library under the I.S.S.N. 0269-0284 in those years.