John (1837-1897)
Joseph (1841-1908)
From the Gloucester Journal
11 May 1839
INQUESTS- at North Nibley, on John Wyatt, who was killed by a wagon passing over him. Verdict – accidental death, and (negligence being proved) a deodand of £4 [roughly worth £241 today]
Deodands have an interesting history. They were compensation for deaths caused by negligence and their use had almost entirely died out until the rapid development of the railways in the 1930s saw an epidemic of railway deaths. The indifferent attitudes of the railway companies caused increasing public hostility.
Under the common law of England and Wales, compensation could only be paid for physical damage to the claimant or their property. The families of fatal accident victims had no claim for purely emotional and economic loss. As a result, coroner’s juries started to award deodands as a way of penalising the railways.
This, in turn, led to the introduction of the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, also known as Lord Campbell’s Act. Campbell also introduced a bill to abolish deodands.
When her husband died, Hannah was left with two small children, Bilhah and John, aged 4 and 2, both baptised at St Mary’s, Wotton under Edge. In the 1841 Census, she is living with Joseph Gabb, a tailor, in Pitcourt. Bilhah is living with her maternal grandparents in Wotton. John is living with Hannah, and also the 10-month-old Joseph, baptised at Nibley Tabernacle as the son of Joseph Gabb and Hannah Wyatt.
The next year, Joseph and Hannah regularised their relationship by marrying at St Martins.
In 1851, the family are still in Nibley. Joseph is now a master tailor, and he and Hannah have two more sons, James and Gilbert. Ten years later, the family are living in Aberystruth, in the South Wales valleys. Joseph is still a tailor but his 3 sons, Joseph, James and Gilbert are all puddlers at the iron works.
Next door was Bilhah, now married to Thomas Williams, a carpenter, and their one-year-old daughter.
Joseph’s step-son John, was boarding in Bath, working as a tailor.
In 1871, Joseph and Hannah were living at Railway Terrace, Aberystruth. In the household was James and his wife and children.
Joseph had emigrated, arriving in New York in October 1867. In the 1870 Census he was living in Apollo Armstrong, Pennsylvania, working in an iron mill. In 1880 he was working at a puddler at the iron mills, and living with his wife Mary (from Wales) and their three children.
Ten years later, he had been joined by his two sons as puddlers, and had three daughters living at home.
He died in 1908, aged 67.
A puddler was a worker in iron manufacturing who specialized in puddling, an improved process to convert pig-iron into wrought iron.
Working as a two-man crew, a puddler and helper could produce around 1.5 tons of iron in a 12-hour shift. The strenuous labour, heat and fumes caused puddlers to have a short life expectancy, with most dying in their thirties. Puddling was never automated because the puddler had to sense when the balls had “come to nature.”
Gilbert, Joseph’s younger brother, had migrated to the same place the previous year, and had married the sister of Joseph’s wife. he and his family were living in Apollo in 1880.
Between 1880 and 1890, Bilhah emigrated to Canada with her family.
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Coming back to John, he married circa 1865 (I can find no record of the marriage), he and his wife had two sons, and he lived in or near James Street, in Bath, until his feath.
I believe he died, aged 60, in 1897 and was buried at Locksbrook Cemetery, Bath.
North Nibley One-Place-Study 