Family Histories

Eileen Stoneham (nee Fewell)

Now lives in Canada but sent us an account of her life in Paulton

I was born in the borough of West Ham, in the East end of London. Just after war was declared, my Mom and I and sister Edna (she died many years ago) were evacuated to Paulton, along with many other families from the neighbourhood. We were taken to the Church Hall on Church Street and "we" were selected to stay with a dear old lady named Mrs Manley, who lived in Newtown.

Well, to make a long story short, when our house in London was bombed, my dad came down to Paulton to live with us. Dad worked for Simmonds Aerocessories munitions plant (previously Purnells) until its closing, by that time we had been given one of the condemned cottages on The Batch, where we stayed until the war ended and we went back to London to live. I can remember that day as if it was yesterday - I didn't want to go back and I cried for days!

I met my husband John, while he was doing National Service, in the Navy. We were married in May, 1952. We emigrated to Canada at the end of 1956. Our first son John, was born in February, 1958 and our second son Steven, was born in May, 1960. We have 3 grandchildren, a girl and two boys. Our youngest son's son died when he was a few months old and he also lost his wife two years ago to lung cancer.

I was 12 years old when the glider crashed in the field in the "Mead", on September, 17, 1944. My Dad and I were walking our dog in the fields on that day which was chosen for Gen. Montgomery's "Market Garden" operation. Looking up in sky, we saw that the tow rope had broken on a glider and it was going to come down in the field. My Dad immediately sent me home with the dog while he stayed in case he could be of assistance. It was a very sad day indeed and one that I will never forget. I seem to remember that Dad invited some Air Force people back for a cup of tea, after the accident, but have no idea regarding their conversations or really who they were.

I can remember very well the Americans who were stationend nearby. I used to tell my friends that when I grew up I was going to marry one!

I have been back to Paulton 5 times. Twice while I was still living in London and 3 times since I have been living here. I used to go back to England on a yearly basis when my parents were still alive, but after my Mom died at the age of 98, in 1998, John and I have only been back 3 times. Travelling by plane these days isn't all it is cracked up to be. Back in the day we were all treated like royalty, but not so any more.

About all that I can remember about Bristol is that we used to go to see a pantomime there at Christmas time. We also visited the zoo a few times. We went to Bath a lot more often. When I was only 11-12 yrs old, a friend and I went to Bath to visit the Roman Baths.

My sister and I used to go to the Methodist Sunday School on Hope Place. We had lots and lots of memorable Sunday outings, going quite regularly to Burnham, Weston super Mare and Cheddar Gorge. Also, Wells Cathederal.Harvest Festival time in the Church was a sight to behold.

My childhood days spent in Paulton can only be described as "idyllic".

22.09.2010

A Brief History of Margaret Gregory (1821 -1854)

This was written by John Summers of Sydney, New South Wales using the research material of other people.

Margaret Gregory was born in Paulton, Somersetshire, England on April 28^th, 1821 to George Gregory and Hanna Hares; she was christened the following day at Holy Trinity Church. She was the third or fourth child of the Gregory’s who had been married at Holy Trinity Church on the 7th August 1815 by the curate, William Wright and in the presence of Richard Gregory and Mary Neal. It may have been George’s second marriage in quick succession as there is a record of an April marriage in 1814 in the same church to Harriet Winter. George and Hanna had several children including Hanna (1816), Harriet (1816), Elijah (1817), Hepzabeth (1819), John (1819), Margaret (1821) , Frances (1822), Mary (1823) Sarah (1825) and Sarah (1829). Some of these Gregory’s appear to make it to the 1841 census while others disappear from the record possibly as a result of infant deaths.

By 1838, Margaret Gregory reached Kent and was living as a domestic servant with her cousins the Emery’s in Clapham, Kent where John Emery is a miller. He was originally from Ashwick, Somerset and married Margaret’s aunt, Hephzibah there before moving to Clapham, Kent. However, Hephzibah died in 1834, leaving John with a large family of 13 children. John remarries in 1838 to Elizabeth Fielder and they are enticed to start a new life in the new colony for free settlers in Port Adelaide and Hindmarsh in southern Australia. Margaret may have also been sent to Kent to avoid the outbreak of the Asiatic cholera which had killed quite a number of local people in 1832.

Both the Emery family and Margaret apply for free passage to the new colony of Port Adelaide, This was distinct from the other Australian colonies in that it received no convicts but rather tried to attract families like the Emery’s of farmers, tradesmen and their families. They leave Gravesend on the 1^st of August 1838 and arrive at Port Adelaide 1^st December 1838. There are 181 passengers on the barque, ‘Lloyds’ and they are among the first few thousand settlers and arrive only a few years after the first group.

On the ship, Margaret met a young boatswain from Clerkenwell, London called George Marsden. On the 28 July, 1840, they marry at Holy Trinity church, Port Adelaide and in 1841 have their first son, George Samuel Marsden. In the 1841 census, they are recorded as still residing in Port Adelaide but soon after they move to Sydney where George’s skill as a stevedore is in demand despite the recent economic depression. They settled in Millers Point and were recorded in the NSW Electoral Rolls as living firstly in Cumberland Street and then by the end of the decade in the more salubrious Princes Street, Millers Point exactly where the Harbour Bridge sits now. This is an indication that George’s stevedore business is doing well as the heights of Millers Point and their ownership of Stockton House on Prince Street are signs of the family’s increasing respectability. The Rocks at this time is a mix of workers and merchants living close to one another but with the merchants living on the Millers Point ridge above the poorer residences Sydney Cove. Later in the century, this area becomes less desirable with many of the families like the Marsden’s moving to country residences in what are now Sydney’s sprawling suburbs. Indeed the Marsden’s establish Marsden’s Retreat in the late 1850s and move there after the death of Margaret and George’s daughter Hanna in 1859.

During their time at Millers Point, Margaret and George have a number of children including George Samuel, John Joseph, William James, Hannah Elizabeth, Caroline and Wilhelmina. They would also have engaged in the pastimes and concerns of the mercantile class of their time becoming members of the local Anglican Church, sending their children to the local school, probably Fort Street School and having an interest in the social and political events of the colony.

In 1849, Sarah Gregory, Margaret’s sister arrives on the vessel, ‘Blonde’. Sarah was born 1825 and the passenger list remarks that she is a needleworker from Paulton, Somerset, and a Baptist, who will be residing with her sister, Margaret Marsden in George Street and that her parents, George Gregory and Hanna Hares are deceased at the time she migrates to Sydney. It is fair to assume that she continued to live with the Marsden family for the most part between 1849 and her marriage. She probably helped Margaret in the raising of the children and the running of her middle class home with its servants and guests. In 1853, Sarah married Richard Powell Nye at the Congregational Church in Pitt Street; she is recorded as living in Harrington Street and then Bourke Street, Sydney, the main business area of the day, and was pre-deceased by her husband in 1861. She died on the 29^th May 1866; there were no children from this marriage.

Margaret died on June 22nd 1854 and may have been sick before that time. Her funeral notice in the Sydney Morning Herald indicated that the funeral procession was to leave from Stockton House, 17 Princes Street, Millers Point. The service may have taken place at the Garrison Church of which they were founding parishioners but the burial, as a result of the increasing overcrowding of the Devonshire Street cemetery, took place at St Stephen’s Anglican Church, Newtown which was on the outskirts of Sydney in 1854.

After Margaret’s death, George Marsden went on to engage, increasingly in the wool pressing business and developed Marsden’s Wool stores at Circular Quay. He married twice more, acquired a farming property at Haslam’s Creek along the new railway line between Parramatta and Redfern stations, had four more children to his last wife, Sarah, the niece of his son-in-law and 30 years his junior, he died in August 1881 at Burwood, Sydney. The name Margaret continued to be used with regularity for the female children in the following generations of Marsden’s, Grosvenors, Pollacks and all the other families whose members are descended from Margaret Gregory of Paulton, Somerset. Margaret represents some of the main features of the development of Australia in the 1840’s and 1850’s as free British settlers replaced convict labour and the children of small farmers and craftsmen gained from the economic successes of shipping, wool and the emerging gold rushes of the 1850s.