Caroline, Elizabeth and Harriet Parker

The house and garden that Samuel and his family occupied at the time of the 1841 Census had, I believe, been taken in from the Waste and Common that surrounded it some time after 1762 (it doesn’t appear on the Berkeley Estate Map of that date). It had vanished by the OS 1st Edition. However, walking up to the Monument, you can easily make out the raised clearing where it would have stood.

The first appearance we have of Samuel was in 1825, where he was sentenced to 18 months in the Penitentiary for …

Two years later, on 16th February 1827, the parish had issued a Removal Order to send Samuel and his wife Sarah, and their children Daniel, Sarah, Jane and Zipporah to Churchdown. Caroline was baptised in Churchdown in 1833, as were Ann in 1828, and Elizabeth in 1835. Harriet was born in Norton in 1839. All their other siblings were born in North Nibley. It seems uncertain why, as both Daniel and Sarah were born in the area, they had a Removal Order placed on them, unless Thomas Robinson was nursing a grudge against him.

Another son, Thomas, was born in 1831 in Churchdown, but he was separated at an early age from his family. Aged 10, he was boarding with a family in the Forest of dean, and, ten years later, was living in the area and a miner.

Anyway, the Removal Order had little effect, as in 1841 the family are back in Nibley.

In 1851, Samuel (now recorded as a woodcutter), Sarah, and Caroline are living in Llanwonno, ‘a hamlet high up in the hills between the historic mining valleys of the Rhondda and the Cynon in Rhondda Cynon Taf, deep in the heart of the South Wales Valleys.’ (to quote Wikipedia). Also with them is the 9-year-old Hannah, the illegitimate daughter of Jane, Caroline’s sister. Elizabeth was working as a housemaid in the same hamlet.

I can’t find Harriet in 1851, but, in 1857, aged 18, she married Thomas Jeremiah, a labourer. They had 8 children. As the Census’ appear, the family have moved around the South Wales area.

Harriet and her 6 children were recorded as having received food to the value of 1/6 during this period, as Thomas is away (he was imprisoned for larceny for 9 months in 1874).

From the Monmouthshire Merlin

In 1891, Jeremiah is recorded as being a farmer, living near Abergavenney. Then, in his sixties, he and his sons are all colliers. The family are living on Marine Street, in Aberystruth. This may sound idyllic, but it was named after the Marine Colliery that had opened only 2 years previously. All that now remains is Marine Street – seen below.

Harriet died in 1903, aged 64.

Elizabeth married Francis Wyatt in 1954, when she was 19. In 1861, she and Francis were living in Escomb, near Durham. Francis was a ‘iron heater at a mill furnace’, and Elizabeth was a dressmaker. They had two children (five more were to follow). Ten years later, the family were living at Witton le Wear.

Francis had taken the route that so many did at the time, from agricultural to industrial work. He started as an agricultural labourer to having what would have been a fairly skilled occupation. I sometimes think that the Industrial Revolution would not have been a wholly negative experience.

Elizabeth died four years later, aged only 40. In 1880 Francis married again, and died in 1909.

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Caroline married George Sims, a mason, in 1855, when she was 22. She and George had eight children. They seem to have been living in Tredegar, Monmouthshire in 1861, as the children of that time were born there. In 1871 the family were living in Tredegar, and ten years later they were living in Canton, Cardiff, where Caroline died, aged 52. George died in 1899.