Stephen Margretts
Ancestral line established to date: Stephen 1825, John 1796, John 1771, Thomas 1732, Thomas 1711, Thomas 1682, Thomas 1658..............Family Tree number 11
Born: during 1825
Stephen was the 4th of 7 children of -
Father: John Margretts
Mother: Charlotte Mansell
Stephen Married: in 1850 @ Newent, Gloucestershire
Spouse: Maria Cox
They had eight Children: Walter 1852
Elizabeth 1854
Maria 1856
Mary 1860
David 1861
Ellen 1863
George Stephen 1866
Alice Hannah 1870
Died: July 1885 in Shurdington, Gloucestershire, aged 61
Buried 08AUG1885 in Shurdington, Gloucestershire
At first glance, one significance of the life of Stephen must be that he was the father to Walter. It cannot be denied that Stephen would have had a formative influence on his firstborn son, Walter, who became head of a extemporary Victorian family in the Forest of Dean. Walter's own biography is to be found on this site.
But, what of the formative early lives of people? How would you describe your early family life? It's certain that answers to that question will produce a great variety and number of accounts. Some descriptions will be of childhood heaven, and some will be of childhood hell, and there will be every shade of happiness or lack of it in between. So, what would the early days of Stephen have been like?
As it records above, Stephen is the fourth child born during 1824 some nine years after his parents marry in 1815. Ann, the first child, is born in 1816, Elizabeth in 1817, followed by Hannah in 1821 and then Stephen. The gap between Elizabeth and Hannah (some 4 years) may mark a lost child not discovered or perhaps not registered. In any case Stephen has three sisters at this moment of birth. The next year he is given a brother, George, who dies within twelve months.
After the loss of George his parents are given Mary and then another boy they call George, perhaps for comfort. So, by 1829, after the birth of the second George, there are four girls aged 13 to 2 and two boys of 5 and one. Very likely, Charlotte relies on the two eldest girls to help manage the other siblings.
If we knew more of the marriage and circumstances of John and Charlotte, the parents of Stephen, we might be able to paint a clearer picture of the surroundings in which Stephen grows up. Their whole married life is in Elmstone Hardwicke evidenced to us by the birth places of all Stephen's siblings. It is one of the rural places appearing on Margrett family trees and, placed just north of Cheltenham. Our only description of Stephen's father is from the baptism in 1821 of Hannah, Stephen's immediate older sister. This describes John as a “labourer”. With seven children to feed and clothe and rent to pay on possibly a cottage provided by his employer, John will have little spare money. Perhaps one indication to the spartan house and family circumstances they might live in, is that John the provider dies in 1836 aged just 40. Stephen is just 12 years old at that moment of tragedy. In those days it is likely Stephen will be employed even at that age and so he helps, perhaps like his three elder sisters, to contribute to the family housekeeping.
He meets and courts Charlotte twelve years later when he is aged 24 in 1848 or 1849 away to the west, on the other side of the River Severn. We shall never know how they came to meet and fall in love. They got married in 1850 in Newent, not far from Ross-on-Wye. It would be easy to assume that Stephen went to get married at Newent because that was where his bride lives, as is so often the case. But perhaps by then he is working there, some 18 miles from where he was born in Elmstone Hardwicke. But what of his bride? She was born less than 5 miles away from Newent in Redmarley, Worcestershire.
But within one year the couple are living in Shurdington, back to the east over the River Severn, between Gloucester City and Cheltenham. That is a significant distance (some 17 miles) in 1851 to move in your first year of marriage but it may be because it is much closer to Elmstone Hardwicke where he was born and perhaps giving access to helpful grandparents, or, more likely, because that is where work is available. Today, Shurdington can be found to be sitting on a country “T” junction with some 20 houses and St Mary's Church and a graveyard, the hamlet consists of farms flanked by the north-south M5 motorway, and just 2 ½ miles from Cheltenham racecourse.
Hopefully we can trust that Stephen and Maria's family life is adequate, if poor, and proceeds with the traditional events such as the arrival of eight children, the eventual schooling, with all the interaction and responsibilities of bringing them up and supporting them. The days would have been too short and the hours insufficient. The test of the relationsips between parents and children would be the evidence found in the subsequent lives and character of the children. Without reports, we can really only speculate.
As said earlier, Walter is the first child born in 1852 when Stephen is aged 27, arguably a late start to a family. They register the birth but the birth certificate shows that they are unable to decide on a name, giving all the details except the name “Walter”. Elizabeth, Maria and Mary's births follow on the dates above. Stephen is now aged 35 when Mary is born in 1860 and we have few clues to life up to now.
But in 1861, we can see one of those valuable snapshots of long ago in the form of a Census Return. The family are, as we have seen, at Shurdington Road in Badgeworth with Stephen aged 36 and working on the land. Maria is aged 35 and fully employed in running the household and family. Walter is aged nine years and is already employed as a carters boy on a Carter's waggons, or helping with the horses maybe. In all likelihood it is a full time job. Elizabeth aged 7 and Maria aged 4 are both described as scholars before the advent of state education. Mary is aged 2. There are two local Gloucestershire lodgers, working on the land like Stephen, and who obviously pay a rent to add to the family income. All looks well even if life is hard and in those times most people stand together and support each other.
Stephen and Maria's 5th, 6th and 7th children arrive. The 7th is George in 1866 when Stephen is now 41 and his wife, Maria, is 40. The eldest, Walter is 14, and has been employed for at least 5 years.
Is life getting harder? Another child is on the way in 1870 when the parents are in their mid-forties. Alice is born but as each day passes Stephen and Maria become more anxious. Walter is 18 and has left home and within a year is marrying Annie Smith, and by 1872 is calling himself Bill Jones to be a coal miner in the Forest of Dean. This is because being called “Margrett” in the harsh environment of a coal mine is not sensible. Stephen and Maria are faced with admitting that their daughter Alice is what is called an “imbecility”. She is thus described in the 1881 Census.
With this “Alice” difficulty sitting on their shoulders, Walter's first child, Florence, arrives nearby in 1876 giving them the joy of their first grandchild, and in 1879 the second grandchild, Ann, arrives but at that moment or soon afterwards, Walter's wife of ten years, Annie, dies. Was it in childbirth or an accident or natural causes? Her death is not yet traced., so we can't know.
Their son Walter, marries quickly in 1881 to Ellen Holmes because someone has to take care of the two orphaned children. At this moment Stephen is 56 and still working on farms. Over the next four years Walter and Ellen produce two new grandchildren for everybody's joy, but at the age of 33 Walter is supporting his mother after Stephen dies aged 61. His burial takes place on the 8th August 1885 in Shurdington, and now his whole family have to survive by standing together as they have learned to do over so many years.
None of the life of Stephen appears to have been published previously before the above record was created.
None of the Margrett Magazines from 1986 to 2012 included any of this life story and therefore none of this was previously recorded in the public domain through the magazines deposited at the British Library un the I.S.S.N. 0269-0284 in those years.