The
Edmonds Families of Bradford-on-Avon
Setting
The Scene
In March 1840 a young couple boarded the
ship “Fairlie” at London Docks, and for the second and last time they set sail
for South Australia, in the best cabin, and with a cargo manifest that had to
suggest a deep optimism for their colonial life ahead. Will and Beth Edmonds –
early 20s, good educations, a-brim with self-belief – had their lives in front
of them.
But this isn’t their story. Not yet. This
is the story of the people and the town that William Bennett Edmonds was
leaving behind, a story of Work and Wool, of Money and Mills, of Family and
Fortunes, and of striving but not always succeeding.
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| The Avon Canal in Bradford |
But the Bradford of today is largely the
product of modern tourism and the demands of residential living. Its previous
incarnations were vastly different.
Sheep and wool had for centuries been a
way of life in the West Country counties of Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire, and
large agricultural holdings were established, like Bradford’s Barton Farm,
referred to in the 1500s as the 'manor house', with its attendant tithe barn,
still today a magnificent piece of medieval architecture. (If God had told Noah
to build a shed he would have made it like this!!)
The
earliest suggestion of a cloth ‘industry’ as such in Brad-ford was in 1249,
with a reference to a fulling mill owned by one Adam le Fohur (Adam the Fuller).
But by the second half of the 1400s the industry had expanded significantly,
producing large amounts of undyed broadcloth, along with even larger amounts of
money for such families as the Hortons and the Yerburys. ('Fulling' was where, after mixing water and a cleaning agent, the woven cloth was pounded in it with mallets, but for the first run through, urine was added, collected from the local cottagers for a penny a bucket!)
Like
any place, Bradford of this time was a vibrant mix of light and shade. It had its
very own burning at the stake in 1524, when a resident, Thomas Tropnell, dared
to deny the church’s dogma of transubstantiation and was burned alive at the
bottom of Market Street, but on the lighter side, a few years later a visiting
worthy was impressed by “…a town all made of stone, with a good market once a
week…”, and how “… all the town standeth by clothmaking…”
Then, in the early 1600s (a lot of today’s
lovely old stone buildings date from this heyday), these canny clothiers
stepped up a gear, changing from grinding out the cheaper but less profitable
material, to the weaving of fine coloured broadcloths called medleys, and by
the mid 1660s a whole new generation of clothiers had begun to prosper,
especially the Methuens, the Threshers, the Cams, the Shrapnells, the Yerburys,
and the Tugwells.
Up till about the 1770s, apart from a few
horse- and many water-driven fulling mills, woollen cloth-making had no
distinctive buildings, being somewhat ‘cottage-industry’ in scale and method,
much of the work being done by hand, a lot of it in individual homes or
attached workshops, and while passing slumps in trade had seen plenty of civil
unrest from the disenfranchised workers, bit by bit machinery was introduced,
causing varying degrees of a whole new turmoil.
The worst of these in Bradford was the riot of 1791 when one of the local owners bravely converted a wool carding machine for scribbling (several steps before 'fulling, to open out and mix the fibres) and, although machinery such as spinning jennies had been used in the town for several years, local people protested that the hand Scribblers would be thrown out of work, and a mob of nearly 500 gathered outside the owner’s house and demanded he hand over the machine or else. His first reaction was predictable and was just as predictably met with a shower of rocks, with a minor collection of windows and bones being broken. His second reaction was to crank it up several notches, with him and his friends firing on the mob, killing a man, a woman and a child and seriously wounding two other people. This got everyone really offside and he wisely surrendered the offending gadget and it was duly burned on the town bridge to much public hooplah. Presumably stepping over the bodies as they went.
The worst of these in Bradford was the riot of 1791 when one of the local owners bravely converted a wool carding machine for scribbling (several steps before 'fulling, to open out and mix the fibres) and, although machinery such as spinning jennies had been used in the town for several years, local people protested that the hand Scribblers would be thrown out of work, and a mob of nearly 500 gathered outside the owner’s house and demanded he hand over the machine or else. His first reaction was predictable and was just as predictably met with a shower of rocks, with a minor collection of windows and bones being broken. His second reaction was to crank it up several notches, with him and his friends firing on the mob, killing a man, a woman and a child and seriously wounding two other people. This got everyone really offside and he wisely surrendered the offending gadget and it was duly burned on the town bridge to much public hooplah. Presumably stepping over the bodies as they went.
But
manufacturing had already reached the limit of what could be commercially done
by hand or powered by hanging a very large water wheel over a river bank, and
besides, little did they realise that the Age of Steam was already in the
wings, along with the dedicated, purpose-built factories, and the enormous
cultural changes, that was to go with it.
It’s at about this point that the last
great (great-ish) Bradford woollen industry family – the Edmonds’ – stepped
onto front-of-stage.
Their
pre-1750 History
Both ‘Edmonds’ and ‘Hinton’ are strong
West Country names, and there are readily-available baptism, marriage, and
burial records for both of them (under various spellings) in Bradford-on-Avon from about the 1580s, but I
haven’t been able to make any clear connections back to them before about 1750.
My
best guess from the material on hand was that these two families sprung from
the steadfast agricultural and/or wool industry workers on whose backs the
land-owners rode, and they learnt the cloth industry the hard way, and during
the one or two generations leading up to their arrival in the public arena,
made enough smart decisions (and alliances) to pull themselves up by their
bootstraps, to be ready to mix it with the big players – just as the West
Country’s woollen industry wheels began to go decidedly wobbly.
John
Hinton and Elimelech Edmonds
John Hinton and Elimelech Edmonds were
the two grafters from the pre-industrial era who set the family up for a
big-ish splash, both born about 1750, undoubtedly into experienced cloth-making
families, most probably right in Bradford, where they grew up and learnt the
trade from any early age.
Both
were Dissenters, from a time when small breakaway churches were springing up
all over, challenging the Anglican Establishment, and both actively supported
the Morgans Hill Independent (Baptist) Chapel in the heart of the town, John as
a lay preacher and Ely as their treasurer.
John Hinton married (unfortunately there’s
no record that I can find as to the name of his wife) about 1780, and had four
children – Daniel, Anne, Elizabeth, and Ruth – and in that year he was already
listed for the town’s Church Poor Rates as a landholder, suggesting he had
industrious forebears, and he hadn’t spent his own youth idly either.
Elimelech Edmonds married an Ann Bennett
in Bradford in 1781, attended by Ann’s friend Mary James, and Ely’s new
brother-in-law William. Ann’s father was also William Bennett – a name, like
John Hinton’s, that would be given to Edmonds sons yet to come – and her mother
was Mary White, and records suggest that the Bennetts and Whites were in the
brewing and inn-keeping business, from the period’s increasingly affluent
shopkeeper and merchant middle class.
Ely and Ann Edmonds had only two children
that survived infancy, John (possibly named after his grandfather) born in
1782, and Ezekiel (possibly named after his great-grandfather) in 1785, when
both Ely and his new son were baptised together, suggesting this was the time
Ely formally joined the congregation of Morgan’s Hill Independent, and began a
fruitful alliance with John Hinton. It was also the time that “Ely Edmunds” was
called in to witness the will of a significant local businessman and property
owner, indicating that he was by then part of the Bradford network, and ready
to move up to serious participation.
As for John Hinton, he was already
well-placed enough to be listed in the town’s directory for 1793 (although
Elimelech isn’t), under ‘Cloth-worker’ and in a freehold property, and by 1795
he was “… an influential member and trustee of the chapel… a cloth manufacturer
of Bradford and a generous benefactor, (and in) 1795 he accepted the honorary
pastorate of the Baptist church at Beckington, living in Bradford and riding
over every Sunday morning. The Sunday services at Beckington began with a
prayer meeting at six am and included three preaching services. Hinton only
took two of these, returning to Bradford after the afternoon preaching, (and
that) …Mr Hinton's ministry was marked by showers of blessing…”
The new century saw the beginnings of
serious change for the town and its primary industry – the age of the Factory
had arrived, purpose-built and imposing, although still yet only
waterwheel-powered. And at the forefront of this was John Hinton.
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| John Hinton's 'Greenland Upper' Mill |
In 1804 - John would’ve been in his mid
fifties - he acquired land on the upper reaches of Bradford’s Avon, probably
with a mishmash of older water-driven workshops already on it, and built a
woollen mill that came to be known as the Greenland Upper Mill - and two more would
soon be built downstream nearby - an imposing lump by the standards of the day. (It was demolished in modern times, and an expensive set of apartments built in its place, intentionally made to look like John Hinton's old mill).
In
his factory John installed the full set of woollen cloth processes, possibly
the first to be seen in the district under the one roof, and it was being said
that “… at the beginning of the 1800s the Wiltshire-Somerset border section of
the West of England woollen industry appeared to be in reasonably good shape
(and even though) …during the 1700s it had certainly not expanded like the
Yorkshire woollen industry, it had maintained its reputation for making, and
particularly finishing, the best woollen cloths, for which there was a
sustained but limited demand…”
Meanwhile,
the next generation was on the move.
On the 15th of March 1803, Ely’s eldest
son John married John Hinton’s youngest daughter Ruth, attended by John’s
younger brother Ezekiel and one of the neighbours. John and Ruth were both 21,
and while the emotional drives may just have been pure Jane Austen, it would
have also made good business sense to more closely connect these two families.
In 1805 the first formal Bradford
Directory listing (extant) appears for Elimelech Edmonds ‘Clothier’, and in
1807 a partnership was formed between Ely and two sons of the old woollen
empires – Yerbury and Tugwell – to buy the small Bullpit Mill (long before there was an actual bull-baiting arena there) on the river
off Church Street. Ely was undoubtedly the ‘junior’ partner in Yerbury, Tugwell
& Edmonds, but it was a serious beginning in the big league for a man
already in his mid-50s, and a leg up for his own two sons.
By this time though John Hinton already
had himself well established, and owned not only the Greenland Mill and a
substantial home and garden in St Margaret’s St, but several shops and another
house that he rented out. But in 1810 John leased out the mill to Thomas
Tugwell – as of Yerbury, Tugwell & Edmonds, although apparently not through
that partnership. And it should be said here that these partnerships were very
transitory, mixing and matching, living and dying – and bankrupting! – on a
regular basis to suit the moment’s circumstances, some attached to parts of
several different mills at the same time in fairly confusing sets of
cross-alliances.
It
was also about now that finally saw the arrival of the Age of Steam in Bradford
(tellingly well behind that in the Midlands), when the owners of the big Abbey
Mill premises in Church St bought a 20hp Boulton & Watt engine, and
suddenly everyone was chasing after them. The true ‘beating heart’ of the
Industrial Revolution had arrived in rural Wiltshire, made practical by the
fact that in 1810 the Kennet and Avon canal was finally opened for its full
length, and this made the supply of coal from the Radstock pits, up till then
only possible by expensive road haulage, more reliable and considerably
cheaper, which partly explains the late arrival of steam in the area.
It was also about this time that the
Greenland Lower Mill was taken over by the partnership of Elimelech Edmonds and
Mawbey (where did they get these names?!) Tugwell, on a 21 year lease at £460
(say $A30,000) a year. There had been an old water-driven ‘tucking’ mill
on this site since the late 1500s, converted to a fulling mill in the late
1700s, and improved further just before Edmonds & Tugwell took it over. ('Tucking' - which came before 'Willying' and 'Braying'! - used a large spike-studded cylinder going at 1,000 rpm to tear the wool into tufts, throwing the stuff about "like flakes of snow").
While it probably wasn’t quite the full blown ‘factory’ that John Hinton’s purpose-built Greenland Upper was, it still gave Ely and Mawbey (who’d inherited a one-fourth chunk of his well-off grandfather’s estate) the chance to step up a couple of rungs. It was also about this time that 'Yerbury, Tugwell & Edmonds' made serious moves to put a Boulton & Watt engine in their Bullpit Mill, so that by the fixing of the 1811 Church Poor Rates, they were all looking reasonably prosperous.
While it probably wasn’t quite the full blown ‘factory’ that John Hinton’s purpose-built Greenland Upper was, it still gave Ely and Mawbey (who’d inherited a one-fourth chunk of his well-off grandfather’s estate) the chance to step up a couple of rungs. It was also about this time that 'Yerbury, Tugwell & Edmonds' made serious moves to put a Boulton & Watt engine in their Bullpit Mill, so that by the fixing of the 1811 Church Poor Rates, they were all looking reasonably prosperous.
In these Rates Returns Ely had a house
with shops attached in Church St (not sure if ‘shops’ meant retail outlets or
workshops, could be either) that his son John and wife Ruth were occupying,
although Ely himself was living in a Church St house owned by one of the
Yerburys, while John Hinton by then had four houses rented out in Woolley St,
shops and a house rented out in St Margaret St, along with his own large house,
garden and shops. Also ‘Hinton & Edmonds’ – suggesting that either Ely
himself or his son John Edmonds was in some kind of partnership with
father-in-law John Hinton – was also assessed for ‘Stocks’, as was all Cloth
Manufacturers, although it’s not clear if this was to do with the value of
materials on hand, or the processing machines, which were often generalised as
‘Stocks’.
At this stage Ely and John Hinton were
about 60, and Ely’s two sons were in their mid-to-late 20s and surely would
have been fairly active in the various partnerships. A new energy was on the
move in the town. But not without its down side.
These new steam-powered mills had been
built quickly at the start of the Power Age, and were fairly close together,
but the topography of Bradford – a river valley with a steep scarp on its
northern side – meant that “…a foggy-smoky miasma would hang over much of the
place at certain seasons, so much so that in the early 1800s the genteel residents
of Bath gave the town its nickname ‘Snuffy’, an allusion to the smoggy
atmosphere, especially over the river where most of the mills were, (where)
…barefoot and rickety children walked through tenement waste tipped straight
into the streets of these central and lower parts of the town, which were run
down and in many places little better than slums…”
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| The Avoncliff Mill in Bradford |
So, at the advent of the new power-driven
era the state of play was that Ely and probably his two sons were in the
partnership that had two modest-sized mills of the old order, while John Hinton
owned the large Greenland Upper Mill (leased out to one of the Tugwells) and a
good deal of other real estate. Both of the fathers were in their mid-60s and
their sons about 30 – John Edmonds now married some 10 years, my guess a fairly
solid character but without the drive and business acumen of his younger
brother Ezekiel, who was still single but probably already well into making an
impact in the industry. And not forgetting the only Hinton son Daniel, who was
in the woollen cloth business enough to be titled ‘Clothier’, but was living de
facto with a widow lady down in Frome in Somerset, Hard to see this relationship
endearing Daniel to his father!
At this point John and Ruth had their
first child, who they named Ezekiel, probably after John’s brother, a child
destined to show them all a thing or two about doing business on his way to
becoming the last of the significant Bradford clothiers. And as both John’s
brother and his new son would for a while inhabit the same stage, John’s son
Ezekiel was later always formally referred to as ‘Jr’ by the family and the
community, even specifically signing his name as such for many years.
As sad as it was, it is an indication of
the Hinton’s wherewithal that in the April of 1814, Daniel Hinton, with about 4
months to live and presumably gravely ill, made out his will, making the
executors his two brothers-in-law John Edmonds and his sister Elizabeth’s
husband William Heal, a local baker. This was witnessed by Ely and his son
Ezekiel, and interesting that Ely signs “Elimeleth”. And note the son’s
flamboyant flourish!
Daniel
would have been around 30, still single (sort of) but he had a fairly
respectable estate of about £2,000 ($A140k), of which he left £500 ($A35k) to
his sister Elizabeth, £100 ($A7k) to his dad in trust to invest for his young
nephew, “…the son of my late sister Ann…”, just £50 ($A3-4k) to “…Mrs Sarah
Hisket of Frome in Co Somerset, Widow, my late mistress…” (‘late’ here meaning
recent, not dead, or even tardy), but the balance of his estate, about £1,350
($A95k) he assigned to “…my sister Ruth the wife of John Edmonds…”, which
suggests that Ruth had a much closer relationship with her brother than did her
sister or her father. (The only one to not judge his living arrangements?)
Whether triggered by his son’s death ten
months earlier or not, in April 1815 John Hinton "…Dissenting Minister of
the Gospel…" made his own will, assigning £500 ($A35k) to his executors
(local businessmen) “…to invest in trust for the upbringing and education of my
grandson John, the son of my late daughter Ann Heal…”, two lots of £50 in trust
for the poor members of the Baptist churches in Bradford and Beckington, a
straight bequest of £50 to his "servant Hannah Hinton" (but doesn't
suggest any family connection), £10 each for his three executors for their
services, and directs that his "…two daughters Elizabeth Heal and Ruth
Edmonds…" dispose of his wearing apparel as they think fit.
He then gets into what sounds like a
decent lump of real estate and business interests, to be liquidated and
invested, and the proceeds divided equally between his two daughters Elizabeth
and Ruth, but he also directs that any balance of each daughter’s inheritance
go on down to their children on the daughter's death. But he then adds
"...in case John Edmonds shall be desirous of retaining or borrowing at
interest any sum not exceeding the value of (Ruth's) half part... the trustees
must get his personal bond or security…”, implying a certain degree of
carefulness?
A
later codicil suggests that John Edmonds had by then approached the old fella
for a loan, which means John had either begun to chase his own business
interests, or more likely needed the money to take a small piece of the action
in the 1816 firm of Yerbury, Tugwell & (father Ely) Edmonds, which
employed some 77 hands between their Greenland Lower Mill and the small one out
at Avoncliff. (The partnership's capital was estimated at about £47,000 ($A3m), but "..the money probably came largely from Yerbury, as Edmonds never had much capital, and the Tugwells were already heavily involved at Greenland Upper Mill.")
The
two Edmonds brothers (and dad Ely) were now well entrenched in the woollen
cloth industry, although Saunders & Fanners big Abbey Mill in the centre of
town had over 300 employees at that time and, with another seven mills
operating just in Bradford, “…the area showed little sign of decline, and there
appears to have been no indication that the 19th century was to be so
disastrous for the West of England clothiers.”
With
things looking fairly good, into this heady mix of industry and optimism Ruth
Edmonds gave birth to their second son, who would go on to father the South
Australian Edmonds’s, naming him William Bennett in commemoration of John’s
maternal forebear.
In 1817 John Hinton added two more
codicils to his will, with complicated provisos about Heal grandchildren,
sounding as though at least one of them had now married, (now refers to
Elizabeth’s husband William as an Innkeeper), but then specifically made the
point that his two remaining daughter's inheritances were for their own benefit
regardless of husbands present of future. Then in 1818 he added yet another
codicil, to clarify some trust points, but seemed to take the opportunity to
once again spell out that all this was for the sole benefit of his daughters
(as they see fit) and their children, and added "...and whereas my sons in
law Mr Heal and Mr Edmonds stand indebted to me for money lent and advanced to
them at interest ...", and directed that these be taken into account in
each daughter’s estate, and then added what sounds like some extra executive
leverage for the daughters in case of default. This is a man with some
uncertainties!
He
then installed a fourth executor, and added a little proviso about specific trust payments to daughter Elizabeth, as though he felt she now needed some
small extra support. (So you'd have to wonder if he was concerned about the way his
sons-in-law were going about their business?).
Life and Death (and Business) continued as
ever in Bradford, and in December 1818 John and Ruth’s third child Samuel Edwin
was born, but late in 1821 the old Lay Preacher (and significant property
owner) John Hinton died, to be interred in the small cemetery behind his
Baptist Chapel, marking something of an end to an era for the family.
But the old Dissenter’s death also meant a
timely inheritance, as the last hurrah of the West Country’s woollen industry
was already waning, and competition with the Midlands was tough, so costs were
being cut, and a report to the Home Secretary referred to “…the distress of the
Bradford poor, and it is a notorious fact that some of the clothiers of the
town were in the habit of sending cart-loads of goods to be processed in nearby
Chippenham, where cheaper rates can be obtained, and the distressed weavers are
thus thrown upon the parish poor-rates, to which the clothiers are under
assessed...”, while another report tells that “…Bradford weavers are starving,
and four suicides are said to have taken place on a single day in 1821…”
And in January of 1822 “…the Bradford
magistrates here have applied for a troop of cavalry to be stationed at
Trowbridge to protect the area against rioters, as there has been a riotous
assembly near Bradford, but peace was restored before the arrival of two troops
of yeomanry…”
But by 1822, with old Ely now not a well
man, John’s more entrepreneurial brother Ezekiel had pretty much become the
true ‘Edmonds’ part of "Yerbury, Tugwell, Edmonds & Co, Clothiers of
Druces Hill”, although Ezekiel – diversifying? – had also set himself up as the
local agent for Atlas Fire insurance (an Isle of Man and Bristol company).
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| The 'old' Abbey Mill in Bradford |
“Abbey
Mill” as it was at that time, was put together in about 1809-1810, from a
collection of workshops on the river’s edge. The operators had installed 14hp
and 20hp Boulton & Watts (an obvious attraction for YT&E), and the site
must have been reasonably well developed as it was impressive enough for the
Duke of Wellington to be shown over it in 1820, although how it looked by the
time of this drawing in 1850 could be more down to the new partners’ hard work
and investment. (The small Bullpit Mill where they started out in 1807 stands
on it’s right).
And
so YT&E became one of Bradford’s biggest operators, although the suggestion
was that the driving force behind this move – at least financially – was mostly
the Yerburys, as it was also said the Edmonds men “…had limited funds and there
is no evidence of money coming in from outside the trade…”
Early in the December of 1825, a patent
was taken out by “…Ezekiel Edmonds (Snr) of Bradford Wilts, for improvements on
machines for scribbling and carding sheep’s wool, cotton, or any fibrous
articles requiring such process…”, so clearly this more enterprising brother
was on the move.
Business and trade (and therefore
especially the poor sods at the bottom) were still having their fair share of
hard times, as in 1826 William Cobbett (of the classic “Rural Rides”), while
staying in the area, met a number of men and boys who had tramped over from
Bradford to “collect nuts” (?), who said they had all been employed in cloth
factories in or near that town, on quarter time and at a reduced rate, and who
added that “…there was a turn-out last winter when the price was reduced to 1/-
a yard, but it was put an end to in the usual way – by the constable's staff,
the bayonet and the gaol…”
But Ely by now was an unwell man, and late
that same month “Elimelech Edmonds, Clothier of Bradford in Wilts”, made a will
naming his two sons John and Ezekiel as the executors of his estate, in which
he provided an annuity of £150 ($A13k) a year for "…my dear wife Ann…", with the balance of his estate to be divided evenly between his two
sons, allowing them to invest "as they think proper" including
"in their Trade and Business in all respects" as long as his wife's
annuity was secure. He signed it, along
with a local businessman and two solicitors as witnesses.
Just one or two months later, about
February 1826, Elimelech Edmonds died at home in Church Street Bradford, but I've never found a record of where either of them were buried, presumably in the Anglican Holy Trinity churchyard, but more likely in the small burial ground behind the Baptist Chapel in St Margaret's St.
Then, a week or so later, it was Gazetted that…
Then, a week or so later, it was Gazetted that…
Notice
is hereby given, that the Partnership lately subsisting between John Yerbury,
Mawbey Tugwell (deceased), Elimelech Edmonds (deceased), and Ezekiel Edmonds,
of Bradford, in the County of Wilts, Clothiers, expired on the 31st day of
December last by effluxion of time —
Witness, our hands the 22d day of March
1826 -
John
Yerbury,
Thos
Tugwell,
John
Yerbury (as Executor of Mawbey Tugwell)
John
Edmonds, Ezekiel Edmonds (as Executors of Elimelech Edmonds)
Ezekiel
Edmonds
…
and another small chapter closed in the history of the town.
The
fact that Ezekiel alone signed off on the dissolution of this partnership (John
signing only as a joint Executor of his father’s share) suggests that up to
then John wasn’t actually a partner, and that his younger brother Ezekiel was
taking the family’s front running, with John possibly only in a management
role.
But
all of that appears to have changed about then. John Yerbury remained as the
senior partner (and probably major financier), while Thomas Tugwell pulled out
entirely, his spot seemingly then taken up by John Edmonds, because in the 1830
Trade Directory the listing was "Yerbury, Edmonds & Edmonds, Woollen
Cloth Mfs, Church St”, although with Ezekiel still having the Atlas Fire
Insurance agency in the town.
In
addition to this, in 1832 the new partnership – now referred to as Yerbury,
Edmonds & Company – also took over the big Greenland Upper Mill (still in
the hands of John Hinton’s executors and employing about 200 hands), making Y,
E & Co an even bigger player in the district, and giving John and Ezekiel a
good deal of standing, especially with both of them being heavily involved in
community affairs, each serving in Baptist Church and “British School” trusts
along with the other heavyweights of the town.
Then in February of 1833, now in his
mid-late 40s, Ezekiel finally decided to marry, to Mary Hart, the 26-year-old
daughter of clothier Samuel Hart, and literally the girl next door. And
probably due to the age difference (and it was the done thing at the time for
the well-positioned), just nine days before the big day Ezekiel drew up a
Marriage Settlement for his bride-to-be. These were sort of dowries in reverse,
whereby the groom would set aside a specific sum in a secure Investment Trust
for the sole benefit of his wife, but often with provisos concerning any
children that may come from the marriage as well, the interest giving wives a
measure of independence in an age that had no welfare system outside of
patronage and the Church Poor Rates.
Ezekiel put aside a modest £3,000
($A 285k), but as three equal payments each a year apart, suggesting that
Ezekiel wasn’t yet as flush as many at the top of the “old money” tree, but he
was working on it. (These bequeaths were usually through Bank Of England bonds @ about 3%, in the names of three very trusted trustees. And it’s interesting to note that back in 1780 when his
brother John married, he doesn’t appear to have been in the Marriage Settlement
stakes at all).
Also in 1833, the partners acquired from
the Tugwell family the old Church St Mill (which included a 10hp Boulton &
Watt) that adjoined their big Abbey Mill, and the two factories were combined,
although it seems that about this time John Yerbury pulled out (at least from
this Abbey Mill operation) and the partnership became simply “Edmonds &
Company”, with John holding 25% of the action and his younger brother the other
75%, bearing in mind that the brothers still operated (but didn’t own) the big
Greenland Upper Mill and also still had the small fulling mill out at
Avoncliff. Their empire (and exposure!) was growing quickly, at a time when it
was generally acknowledged that “…the cloth trade (in Bradford) was in
decline…”, so we can only suppose that the Edmonds brothers – or at least
Ezekiel – believed they could squeeze something worthwhile out of what was
left.
In January 1834, the young man who was to
have quite an adverse impact on John Edmonds’ last days, was born to Ezekiel
Snr and Mary in Bradford. While his parents were quite strong supporters of the
Morgan Street Independent Church, their new son (their only son, and so
therefore destined to be the heir to Ezekiel Snr’s estate) Frederick Ezekiel
wasn’t baptised until nearly two years later for some reason, when his new sister
Marianne was born and they were then baptised together.
But John’s lads had a twenty year head
start on their new cousin. Ezekiel “Jr” was about 21 and probably already into
the wool trade, while William (18), Samuel (16), and Ruth (10) would have surely
still been attending to their educations, the West Country abounding with good
Public Schools.
In 1837, William (now about 21 and
apparently called ‘Will’, and who seems to have never set foot in the cloth
business in the short time between his schooling and emigrating) bumped into a
Miss Elizabeth Anne (referred to as ‘Beth’) Evans in London’s Poplar parish,
and began courting. I’ve no idea how they might have met, as it’s some 180 kms
from Bradford to London, and the railways were only barely stirring into life.
Maybe Will did part of his education in London? Elizabeth was also clearly well
educated, her mother Anne (nee Chapman) came from Buckinghamshire, and her
(otherwise total enigma of a) father John Evans was a Silk Mercer, but what or
who may have brought this couple together is a minor mystery that someone else
may want to solve one day.
Then on the 15th of March of 1838
(coincidentally on his parent's 35th wedding anniversary) Will and Beth were
married in the Poplar parish church, with Will’s rank described simply as
‘Gent’ (as was his father’s) and that he lived in Bradford. The witnesses were
an Eliza Jane Payne (presumably a friend of Beth’s) and James Lovegrove, who
was the son of a nearby mill owner in Bradford and probably one of Will’s
mates, but there’s no indication that any of Will’s family was there. Then,
just two weeks later, the newly-weds sailed for South Australia on the 416 ton
barque "Duke of Roxburgh" under Capt Thompson, and set about founding
the colonial Edmonds’ families.
Meanwhile, home in Bradford, life and
business pressed on, and in Robson’s Trade Directory for 1839, under “Cloth
& Kerseymere Mfrs” E & J Edmonds are listed, so brothers John and
Ezekiel Snr were clearly still in business together in the big Abbey Mill
complex in Church St, probably with John’s other two sons Ezekiel Jr (now 26)
and Samuel (now 21) working in the factory and learning the trade, although
Ezekiel Snr seems to have had a more diverse portfolio of financial interests
by this time, underscoring the assumption that he had the greater business
acumen of the two brothers.
But some time early in 1839, it seems as
though John Evans (Will’s new father-in-law) must have died, although I’ve had
some trouble pinning this down. All I know is in the June of that year Will and
Beth suddenly started making arrangements to return to England (a three month
trip, not to be undertaken lightly), leaving behind a share-managed farm, a
cottage, some blocks of land at Kensington, and a promising position in the administration
of the fledgling colony, arriving back in England about late December and
staying for about three months, during which they spent time in the West
Country and in London, where the couple collected up Beth’s mum, along with an
impressive cargo manifest of stuff to make life a little more user-friendly in
Adelaide, and in April 1840 they left England (never to return) on the barque
"Fairlie" via Cape of Good Hope.
But as good as the future seemed for Will
and Beth, the 1840s were hard times in Bradford, and mill owners and workers
alike were struggling, trade in decline, finances over-extended, factories
empty, bankruptcies hovering.
This
downturn had been coming for some time, as these older factories had simply
evolved over several centuries, the end product of sheep farming in the
district with mills set up on the nearest half decent watercourse. But the
Midlands mills arrived in the later wave, when steam power was already
established, and consequently they were built near the coal mines, meaning that
once steam became king, areas like Bradford were at a severe cost disadvantage.
They were steadily being left behind.
Then, in the September of 1841, the Cooper
Bros big mill over in Staverton went belly up, quickly followed by Saunders
& Fanner in Bradford’s Greenland Lower Mill, taking the Bath-based Hobhouse
& Philpott Bank down with them, the ripple effect going right through the
community, and soon “…many people were out of work and it was said that 400 had
to go to the workhouse…”, although “…the only major textile company to survive
this period was Edmonds & Co of Abbey Mill."
So, for the moment, John and his two sons
Ezekiel Jr and Samuel, and John’s brother Ezekiel Snr, seem to have weathered
the financial storm going on around them, and while the bottom fell out of
property values, between them they still owned a reasonable chunk of the town,
as borne out by the 1841 Census and the Church Tithes (Poor) Rates.
John
and Ruth (now both 59) were living in a large house (left) near their mill in
Church St – one of a set of three houses with some “old shops” attached that
John and his brother owned between them – with Samuel still at home, as well as
two servants, but it’s not clear where their daughter Ruth (now about 15-16)
was on Census day, possibly away at school?
John and Ruth themselves owned three
houses, an orchard and a garden out in the rural-ish west end of town, all of
which they rented to one of the locals, plus his partnership interest in the
whole Abbey Mill complex, along with a “Horsehouse Ground & Pasture” that
the two men leased out to another local.
Ezekiel
Snr (now 52 and still nominating “Clothier” as his occupation), lived just off
Church St in his imposing Abbey House estate with his wife Mary (34, also
“Clothier” but can’t see her working a loom!) and their children Frederick (7),
Mary (5), and Anne (1½), plus three servants, but as well as his partnership
interests with John he had the Abbey Weaving Shops nearby in his own right,
plus four other small business and garden properties that he rented out.
Clearly doing pretty well at this point.
John’s son Ezekiel Jr (now 25) was by then
out on his own, living in "Greenland", presumably in part of the real
estate attached to the Upper Mill that the family was leasing (described as
Orchard & Pasture, four Tenements, Sideland, and the Factory and adjoining
land), plus Ezekiel Jr owned an “Arable Field near Stumps Cross” that he rented
to a local.
So, recession or not, the Edmonds clan
wasn’t in too bad a shape, although it appears that John was probably a little
deeper in hock, and not quite enjoying the same status as his brother, because
in the 1842 (and 1844) Directories for Bradford, under “Gentry & Clergy”
there is “Mr Ezekiel Edmonds, Abbey House” listed, but not John.
In the March of 1842, John’s son Samuel (now 24) married a Mary
Hooper in Bristol, with Mary’s sister
Elizabeth as bridesmaid and Samuel’s elder brother Ezekiel Jr as best man. Mary
was one of three Hooper sisters, and the girls’ father was a Richard Hooper, a
Silk Mercer, so also in the cloth trade, from that bustling port town that the
Edmonds’ seemed to visit off and on.
Somewhere in this same period, Ezekiel
Edmonds Jr must have also married(single in 1841, married by 1851 Census), to a Sophia Steer, the daughter of a
bigwig of the Indian Raj who had come home to settle with his family, Sophia in
fact being born at The Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), said to be while on
the voyage home.
Then, in 1844, the executors of John
Hinton’s estate finally put the Greenland Upper Mill up for sale, arguably far
too late for it to realise much, as by then it was all but empty, and the local
trade in woollen cloth was dying by degrees. The value of Ruth’s inheritance
had by then been severely reduced, and probably when she and John needed it the
most. And in South Australia, the wheels had come off also, as the colony had
also fallen on hard times, and Will was in trouble – ah, but that’s another
story.
But,
as always, life and business and babies rolled on, and in late 1847 Ezekiel Jr
and Sophia had their first child, but in December of that year it appears
the family partnership had finally run its race for some reason, as it was
Gazetted that…
NOTICE
is hereby given, that the Co-partnership lately existing between us the
undersigned, carrying on business as Woollen Manufacturers at Bradford in the
county of Wilts, hath been dissolved as from the 1st day of January last past.
Witness
our hands this 22d day of December 1847
Ezekiel
Edmonds
John Edmonds
Ezekiel Edmonds, jr.
John Edmonds
Ezekiel Edmonds, jr.
…and
on the very same day, a £38,000 (that’s $A4.3 million!) loan at 5% interest was
“…secured by Bond to John Edmonds, Ezekiel Edmonds the younger, and Samuel
Edwin Edmonds all of Bradford, Clothiers…”, from Ezekiel Edmonds Snr, to be
repaid on 1/1/1855 (unless repayment was required earlier when it was to be
repaid in three equal payments six months apart from that date).
These two things suggest that
business-wise, not only had Ezekiel Snr done remarkably better than his brother
in the tough up-and-down years of the Bradford woollen cloth trade of the 1830s
and 1840s, but Ezekiel Snr could also see the writing on the wall – that the
industry in the West Country was in its death throes. But John couldn’t. John
and his two sons were about to give it one more roll of the dice. Largely on
borrowed money.
But the upside was that all four of them
made it under the usual “Gentry & Clergy” header of the 1848 Directory for
Bradford, with Ezekiel Snr now in the high status Frankleigh House up on the
heights of the town (temporarily, as he later moved over the road to
“Berryfield”, an even more impressive estate), Ezekiel Jr was in Belcome House
(also not to be sneezed at), John was still in Church St but in Ezekiel’s
recently vacated Abbey House, while Samuel and Sophia had a place (of unknown
status) in St Margarets St.
While
Ezekiel Snr (now 63) appears to have retired at this point, John (now 66) and
his two sons threw themselves into working their Abbey Mill, now the biggest of
only four mills still operating in the area, one of which was the old John
Hinton mill at Greenland Upper, now being run by a John King and a Henry
Edmonds.
My
best estimate makes Henry a (tenuous) second cousin. His father was a Richard
Edmonds and his mother Joyce nee King, he was born just over at Stoke in Somerset
about 1810, and he had a son he also called Ezekiel. Henry dabbled in the wool
industry for most of his life, having a mill in Trowbridge for a while, and
probably took the Greenland Upper when the executors put it up for sale. He
also fiddled with the old Bullpit Mill and the remaining one over at Freshford
in the 1850s, and went bankrupt about 1855. But Henry at least served to add
one more Edmonds name to these last days of West Country wool, helping to
create the impression that the Edmonds’ truly were “…the last of the Bradford
Clothiers”.
It’s hard to interpret why, but in
September 1849 an insurance policy was taken out with the Caledonian Life Co,
whereby £3,000 ($A330k) was to be paid to Ezekiel Edmonds Snr on the death of
his brother John. Bearing in mind that John and his two sons owed Ezekiel a
whopping £38,000, not sure what the point of this (token?) was.
 |
| Berryfield House c.1900 |
As the time and the influence of John and
his brother Ezekiel were drawing to a close in the town, the younger
generations were beginning to make their moves.
In the June of 1850, for some reason
John’s son Samuel, now aged about 32 and some eight years into his marriage,
was “baptised as an adult" in the town’s big parish church of Holy Trinity
next door to their mill. Considering that the Edmonds/Hinton people always had
heavy Nonconformist leanings and actively supported the Baptist Chapel, this was
a bit of an oddity, but maybe he was hedging his bets, socially and
spiritually.
And a few weeks later his brother
“…Ezekiel Edmonds the younger of Bradford, Cloth Mfr…” applied for a patent
concerning the improved processing of "Woollen fabrics", one of
several patents he was to take out in an effort to gain an edge in the industry
and inject some new life.
So, by the 1851 Census, we find John
Edmonds (68, “Clothier”) living in Church St with his wife Ruth and their
daughter Ruth (now 26 and still single), plus two servants. Across in Woolley
St was their freshly-baptised son Samuel (33, “Clothier”), with his wife Mary,
although still no children, but Mary’s sister Ellen Hooper was visiting her
from Bristol at the time.
Over the river in Belcombe House was
John’s other son Ezekiel "Jnr" (38, “Woollen Mfr” and now a JP), with
his wife Sophia Ann and their daughters Alice (3), Augusta (2) and Gertrude
(8m), along with four servants.
The elder Ezekiel Edmonds (65, “Cloth
Mfr”) was living in Berryfield House with his wife Mary and daughters Mary Ann
(15), and Anna Maria (11). But the big house also had five servants, including
a Governess for “Home Education” of the two girls. Son and heir Frederick, now
17, was away, a “Pupil” in Hampstead Middlesex, in what looks like an small and
exclusive private boarding school. (Apparently learning how to be a superior
git).
And then it was the year of 1852. It was
to become a pivotal time for the Edmonds clan.
Ezekiel
Snr was not a well man, and coincidentally or otherwise, his brother John and
his two boys managed to pay off the first £6,000 ($A700k) of their sizeable
debt to him, so they were at least into a reasonable cash flow, bearing in mind
that the annual interest bill alone was about $A215k. And meanwhile, their
distant cousin Henry Edmonds and his (new) business partner were struggling to
keep a step or two ahead of the creditors with their odd assortment of mills.
They were tough times for those who were valiantly trying to hang on. (Henry’s
Limpley Stoke mill burnt to the ground on Xmas Eve 1853 and was put up for
sale, but the “unsightly remains” didn’t find a buyer till 1861).
Also in 1852, “Ezekiel Edmonds Jr of
Berryfield” was commissioned as one of eleven Deputy Lord Lieutenants of
Wiltshire, a largely ceremonial appointment that the Establishment of the day
was so good at. It didn’t pay anything but it implied status, and consequently
(or was the reason for it?) it didn’t do him any harm at all in his race to
Parliament. And curious that he was apparently living at “Berryfield”, the home
of his (now seriously ailing uncle) Ezekiel Snr, and you can only wonder if
Uncle Zeke was acting in some kind of sponsorship or mentoring role to his
up-and-coming nephew.
An “Old Bradfordian” in his latter days,
looking back to about this time, tells how Ezekiel Edmonds Jr went about
lambasting a would-be political opponent, how he “…posted in the Swan club
room, at Bradford, an electioneering rhapsody, the first verse of which, as
near as I can remember, was thus…
The
knight of Foremark sprang from his bed, where gout had long confined him
And
he swore that principle no more, should in its trammels bind him
And
"O, Corruption dear," he cried, “Corruption, O my Charmer!
Do
thou arise, be Thou my guide, and buckle on my armour."
Okay, not the greatest prose by today’s
measure, but still easy to visualise this new generation hot-head in the local
pub, giving his stuffy predecessor the what-for!!
And this “Old Bradfordian” also went on to
talk about how, amid the hurley burley of election time, “…Jack Hibberd`s
mutton pies, old Forth`s baked fagots, and mother Haswell`s black puddings were
incontinently devoured by the roarers, and huge pots of swipes were given to
those who yelled the loudest at the headquarters of the opposing candidates.
Great was the seething commotion, neighbours disputing with neighbours. Old
Caddler Mead, Tommy Cleveland and polite Samuel Nicholls, held warm
discussions. Joey Everett, Benny Spender, and Hunt, of The Royal Oak, made it
warm at the Bridge Foot. Nightly meetings were held at The Swan, where George
Lucas the Schoolmaster, George Rolf the Coppersmith, and Joey Collar the
Collector, were the chief spokesmen, while ever and anon the portly frame, the
handsome face, and the eloquent voice of William Hale enlivened the scene.
“And
sometimes Ezekiel Edmonds Junior, elegant in form and fiery in action, would
stir up the Reformers till the old club-room would reverberate with his
eloquent words – ‘How dare the Westminster renegade, this hoary old turncoat,
ask for the votes of the electors of North Wiltshire?’ But old Burdett was not
only mendacious, he was audacious, tojous l`audace, but he (Ezekiel) boldly
asked, and was triumphantly elected.”
Then, on the 21st of August 1852, Ezekiel
“the elder” died at home in Berryfield House with his family around him,
including his 18-year-old son Frederick who was set to inherit his father’s
significant estate, which was temporarily being watched over by his mother, an
estate that included the inter-family loan balance of £32,000 ($A3.8m), and
still due no later than Jan 1st 1855, which just happened to be a few days
before son and heir’s 21st birthday. (I'm sure Ezekiel was buried at Christ Church up on the hill in Bradford, and there's only one significant "tomb" there, but the inscription is now impossible to read).
With
the bondings of the two brothers now gone, and a younger order emerging,
tensions and rivalries seemed to surface.
An insight into the everyday life (and a
somewhat Dickensian preoccupation with money and inheritance) within Berryfield
estate can be gained from the specific household accounts that were required to
be kept for the two-and-a-half years from the date of Ezekiel’s death to the
coming of age of young Frederick, which saw near-equal total incomings and
outgoings of £21,800 (which works out today at about a $A980k turnover per
annum! And sorry if all the following is a bit fiscal, but what can I say, I used to be an Accountant, I love this stuff!).
“Income”
included… Dividends ex Govt Bonds,
Railway Shares, sale of Bonds, rents from “Edmonds & Co” (£260 for each ½
year), £800 per ½ year interest on the Edmonds Bond (that’s the 5% on the
£32,000 unpaid balance), rents from 5-6 houses, the £12,000 part repayment from
Edmonds & Co, interest from Bradford Turnpike Bonds, extra interest from
Edmonds & Co, and then another £5,000 off the Edmonds loan.
Some
of the outstandings accounts at Ezekiel’s death included – Butcher £34, Doctor
£64, Brewer £19, Wine Merchants £2-8-0, Piano Tuner £1-1-0, an advert for Berryfield
£20-6-2, Lawyers £110, Malt & Hops £27-4-0, “Horses” for Frederick £75, and
for another Frederick horse £100. (Today that’s a ten grand nag! Still, I suppose
it’s marginally cheaper than the equivalent, a Harley. But clearly beer meat and horses
rated over wine and song!!)
Ongoing
“Expenses” included… Undertaker £148, Revd Wm Popham £6-6-0 for “Tomb”, a
Blacksmith re the Tomb £33-7-8, the mason for Tomb £25-12-0, Frederick’s
mourning clothes £5-16-0, to Revd J H Bradney one year’s rent of Land £29
(first paid 6/5/1853), a vet bill £4-6-0, legacies (inc “Mr Edmonds” £300 ?), lithograph of House and Adverts
£7-5-0 ("Berryfield" was going up for sale), the quarterly allowances for Mary and the children (Mary £150, Fredk
£100, girls £22-10-0 each), and a “Water Bed for Mrs Edmonds” from Surgeon A Adye
£5 (is nothing new?!).
And “Residuals” listed as owing to the
estate were –
Edmonds
& Co £15,000
IOU
Joseph G Jones £200
Cash
at Bank £4,255
Bradford
Turnpike Trust £100
Shares
Bradford Gas Co £192
Bal
of 3% Annuities £1,350
The £15,000 ($A1.7m) listed above was the
final balance of the Bonded Loan, after John and his sons paid £12,000
($A1.35m) off late in 1853, and another £5,000 ($A600k) at the end of 1854,
which was just before Frederick turned 21, in January 1855, an event that was
to put another whole set of wheels in motion.
But somewhere amid all of this family
drama, John’s youngest son Samuel also died, and for his father, now about 70
and with his own health in decline, this was one thing too many and he seemed
to finally give up the struggle, and pulled out of everything, to leave his son
Ezekiel (with a new partner Wm Webb) to fully take over all their business
interests.
At this point Frederick the young heir now
embarked on (my interpretation) a headlong push to (a) get married, (b)
liquidate every asset he could lay his hands on, and (c) grab the money and
run. And his first act was on the 8th of May 1855, when he got his lawyers to
draw up an Agreement the size of a bedsheet (marked “In Chancery”) between “…Frederick
Ezekiel Edmonds Esquire of Berryfield House and Ezekiel Edmonds Jr of Bradford
in the County of Wiltshire Clothier…” concerning the division of the big Abbey
Mill complex, in which his father’s estate still held a 75% share. Something
that was of little commercial interest to young Frederick, who seemed to have
no sense of attachment to Bradford or the wool industry.
The mill was described as “…in Church
Street Bradford, built by John Saunders deceased and late in the occupation of
John Edmonds, Ezekiel Edmonds jr, and Samuel Edwin Edmonds[ ], and now of
Ezekiel Edmonds jr and William Charles Webb his partner… all those clothing
mills or factories adjoining and the stock mill, warehouses, workshop, wool
lofts, drying stoves, ware rooms, cottages, dye houses, and other buildings in
and about the said mills factories and workshops…”, and then goes on in dreary
repetitive legalese to the effect that the two cousins have each nominated an
Arbitrator (a Builder and an Engineer) and these Arbitrators have nominated an
Umpire (another Engineer).
The Arbitrators were set the task of
deciding a physical 1/4 : 3/4 apportionment of the whole complex, but “…without
dividing walls or actual division except by boundary marks…” (although the
Arbitrators could devise a partition wall as long as it didn’t diminish the
market value of either part, or compromised the 3:1 shares, or render either
part less useful or if not then agree to a value in compensation - geez, the lawyer-speak had to work some major gymnastics to cover this one!), all so
that Frederick’s 3/4 could be valued for sale or lease. And they had 7 weeks to
get it done and agreed on by all parties or the Umpire stepped in and his
decision would be binding on everyone.
This was signed by Frederick Edmonds and
Ezekiel Edmonds “jr”, but then a note was added, signed by John Edmonds, that
he also agreed to all of this. Not sure why John was added like a ps, but as
can be seen, his signature looks so shaky, although with just a little flourish
at the end?
Frederick’s next lawyer-task was dated the
very next day the ninth of May (strongly suggesting to me that the above and
the following were in fact all about him getting cashed-up and married), when
he organised his Marriage Settlement to one Emma Calthrop (an excellent catch)
drawn up. I don’t have an actual copy of this document, but the ones that
follow make its content clear.
Next
day, on the tenth, he formally released the executors of his dad’s will (who
were two lawyers and his mother) and accepted responsibility for all
outstanding items connected to it. Then on the 15th May 1855 – which became a
busy day for the lawyers – they start with a formal Notice by his bride-to-be
to the executors of her late grandfather’s will, that she was about to marry
and therefore wanted her 1/13th share of some £10,500 (her bit works out to about
$A90k) and formally concedes “…full power for Frederick Ezekiel Edmonds to
discharge the money.”
Also that day Frederick organised a Notice
to the Trustees of his Dad’s will, that as part of his Marriage Settlement he
was assigning to it £10,000 ($A1.1m) from his entitlement, being half of the
£20,000 mentioned in that will. Then there was another Notice, this one to John
Edmonds of the 1st part, and Ezekiel Edmonds (Jr) and William Charles Webb of
the 2nd part, that he was also assigning to his Marriage Settlement –
(a)
the £15,000 ($A1.6m) from that 1847 Bonded Loan @ 5% that was still outstanding
to his father at the time of his death,
(b)
another Bond from Ezekiel Edmonds (Jr) and his partner dated 8/5/1855, (value
unspecified but it has to be the unknown amount he expects to pocket from the
dividing up of the Abbey Mill),
(c) that £3,000 insurance policy on John
Edmonds’ life taken out in 1849, the policy having since been assigned by
Ezekiel (Jr) to Ezekiel (Snr) as security for £3,000 of the said £15,000, and
(d)
the “equitable change” in the value of Ezekiel’s (Jr) freehold property and
improvements at Greenland, being nominated at £2,000 (but only if the lawyers
used English and some half sane syntax and a few bloody commas would you work
out what this one was all about!).
It’s signed off by John (again in a very
wobbly hand) and Ezekiel and partner Webb.
Same
day still, and the poor old hand-cramped law-clerks churned out yet another
Notice, this one to the Trustees of the 1813 Marriage Settlement of who sounds
like his bride-to-be’s long-dead grandfather, which entitled each grandchild to
an equal share (actually a 1/13th part) in a £7,000 Trust Fund on their
marriage or turning 21.
I could be seen to be unkind here, but to
me it sounds like young Frederick was trying to put together a fairly showy
Marriage Settlement without actually having to stump up any real cash.
Certainly none that he personally earned. And this taken care of he duly
married, sold up the sizeable balance of his Dad’s estate – house, acreage,
horses, paintings, wine cellar – his Mum moved to Bath, and he and his bride
turned their backs on Bradford with unseemly haste and swanned off to the north
coast of Devon to live the life of the country squire.
Meanwhile, back at the coalface, in 1855
only four cloth manufacturers remained in the once mighty wool town of
Bradford-on-Avon – Edmonds & Co of Abbey Mill, and three other small
operations. Ezekiel was by then a Magistrate, but his parents John and Ruth
were in ill health and their days and their Time were coming to an end. John
was quietly winding up his affairs.
Around about Xmas Day 1855 Ruth came down
with a bad bout of bronchitis and took to her bed, and on the 8th of January
1856, in their home in Church St and with John at her side, Ruth died of a
heart attack. John lasted just six months. They had been married 53 years, had
buried one adult son, and watched another sail off to the other side of the
world and make grandchildren they would never see. They had worked hard, gave
it their best shot, saw their eldest son and John’s brother do well, but hadn’t
really won many themselves. John was just worn out.
On the 23rd of June 1856, aged 74, John
Edmonds “Esquire” died at home of “Gradual decay over several years”. He didn’t
bother to make a will, leaving an estate “…under the value of £200”, and
somehow that speaks volumes. But, even though there’s nothing much to indicate
this, I like to think that a certain amount of John and Ruth’s earnings were
about supporting their children as they went along – to Ezekiel and Samuel
through the business, and to Ruth as well, as she managed to accumulate a
modest package from somewhere, and I wouldn’t think that the pay from being a
Lady’s Companion would generate too many Railway Shares (see the Epilogue). And
Will too – how would a newly married young man afford the best cabin on the
ship on both voyages, as well as a manifest of “…48 casks, merchandise, 7
cases, 7 pkgs, 13 bales, 4 carriages, 14 qtr-casks wine…” on the return trip?
Sadly, I have never found the old couple’s
grave. The new parish cemetery just out of town was opened about 1850, and
there are many headstones in it from that period with faces that have eroded
away and are now unreadable. I feel sure theirs is one of them.
EPILOGUE
And what became of the Edmonds family
lines in Bradford?
Several distant cousins hung on for a few
decades – second cousin Henry Edmonds went broke trying to squeeze something
out of a couple of other-era mills, raised his family and lived on in Bradford
for many years, passing away over in Freshford in his mid 1880s – an Isaac
Edmonds had a decent boat-building business by Bradford Wharf for a couple of
decades from the 1850s – and a Robert Edmonds was quite successful in the
beer trade in the town through the 1860s and 1870s.
Young Frederick, as I said, lived out the
squire’s life of ease and servants in Lynton in Devon on the back of his dad’s
hard graft, but left no heirs that I can see. Maybe the powers-that-be are
waiting for one of us to put in a claim!
John and Ruth’s youngest, their daughter
Ruth, never married, but seems to have taken up the life of the Lady’s
Companion in her young-to-middle years, missing both the 1861 and 1871 Census,
but reappears in 1881 (then 56), living at 13 Victoria Pl, Clifton Bristol, as
the head of a lodging house (all the places on either side also look like
genteel boarding houses), with a small additional income from "Interest
from Savings & Railway Shares". They are all women in the house, aged
33-65 and either widows or single, all living on investments of some kind, but
there are no other Bradford lodgers.
Some time after this Ruth moved to a house
in Axbridge in Somerset, where she lived till her death late in 1892 aged 68,
and as a consequence a law firm in Bristol wrote a letter on behalf of “the
sister of William Bennett Edmonds of Goolwa SA" to her family in the
colony, seeking to place a small bequest with any living children of her
brother Will.
It’s her elder brother Ezekiel (once “Jr”)
that kept the tattered and faded Edmonds flag flying in the old town.
Ezekiel and Sophia had four daughters and
a son, all born in Bradford, and they lived on in Berryfield House, with it’s
lovely grounds and stone outbuildings that are from another age entirely (at
the time of writing all being changed from what had been a hospital of many
years, to a swish set of apartments, the centrepiece of an expensive new
housing estate). He was a JP, a magistrate, a Liberal MP, and a Deputy Lord
Lieutenant for Wiltshire, had the Atlas Insurance agency still, was running the
Abbey Mill, and had fingers in several other pies. He hadn’t been idle.
In the 1861 Census (then aged 48), he was
described as a “Landed Proprietor and Woollen Manufacturer”, and with him in
the big house up on the hill was his wife Sophia, his children Alice (13), Augusta
(12), Gertrude (10), Walter (7), and Dora (3), along with a niece of his
wife’s, plus a governess and four other servants.
But it wasn’t all strawberries and cream.
Times were tough and the woollen cloth industry in the West Country was all but
dead, and by 1864 Ezekiel’s Abbey Mill operation declared bankruptcy, and he
had to start making some creative moves.
As best as I understand it, all of the
capital raising among the Wiltshire manufacturers had always been through
partnerships, where individuals put up the cash, although there seems to have
been some kind of limit to liability, a little like the current day “family”
shareholdings under the “Pty Ltd” corporate status. But none had attempted a
public float of the “Company Ltd”, stock exchange listed type.
But
Ezekiel apparently thought that now was a good time to give it some promotion,
and he helped form the “West of England Woollen Manufacturing Co”, to buy the
nearby Staverton Mill (Godknows there were plenty of empty ones to pick from)
for production of cloth for the felting process, which would give significant
savings on labour and make the mill competitive with the Midlands in this
particular market at least.
Ezekiel
was appointed to the Board, the only local director, profits were forecast,
capital invested, and specialised machinery bought. But the whole thing failed
to get airborne and all this lovely new special machinery was never used. To
recoup what they could, the Mill was offered for sale in 1865 as a going
concern, but when a group of seriously interested businessmen from London came
to inspect it, they found it empty, “…the machinery being in the Edmonds
factory in Bradford.” Bankrupt or not, he must’ve started up the business
again, but hard to put an ethically positive spin on this one!
Oddly
enough, the Londoners still purchased the mill in early 1866, for £20,000
($A1.7m) and launched the Staverton Cloth Company “…to carry on the trade
lately conducted by Messrs Edmonds & Co of Bradford-on-Avon for more than
50 years…”, but the transferred machinery remained a bone of contention for
some reason, as in June 1867, with the new company going well (without the
services of Ezekiel Edmonds), at a self-congratulatory dinner there were the
usual toasts and speeches, during which “…the Chairman Mr Gibbons enlarged on
the deception which had been practised about the mill by Edmonds & Co”.
Damned sore loser obviously!
In 1866 Ezekiel’s Abbey Mill was offered
for sale by auction, with a 25hp steam engine included (although no specific
mention of several pieces of nearly new specialised machinery) and in July 1867
there was a Gazetted –
Notice
to Separate Creditors of Ezekiel Edmonds –
In
the Matter of Ezekiel Edmonds and William Charles Webb, of Bradford and
Staverton, in the county of Wilts, Cloth Manufacturers and Co-partners. the
trustees of the assignment executed by the above-named for the benefit of their
creditors, hereby give notice, that they will on Wednesday, the l1th July
instant, proceed to declare a Dividend under the separate estate of the
above-named Ezekiel Edmonds, and will divide the assets thereof among such of
his separate creditors only who shall, on or before that day, have sent in the
particulars of their claims to the undersigned, or to Messrs. Ladbury, Collison,
and Viney, of No. 99, Cheapside, London, Accountants.
The
trustees further give notice, that they will not be liable for the assets, or
any part thereof, so distributed, or be answerable or accountable to any person
or persons of whose claim or demand they shall not then have had notice, and
have been substantiated by proof if required.
Ezekiel
and Sophia then disappeared off the radar for many years, to reappear in
London, where they lived out their days until 1881.
 |
| Holy Trinity, Bradford on Avon |
And
such was the end of the Era of the Edmonds Families of Bradford-on-Avon. Walk through Bradford’s lovely old parish
church of Holy Trinity today, and on the walls you will see tribute brasses and
plaques to Hortons, Cams, Threshers, Shrapnells (yep, one of them invented a
better way of killing the enemy), Methuens, Yerburys, and Tugwells.
Every big name from the Age of Wool but one.
Edmonds.
In fact, nowhere in Bradford today will you find the name – not on a commemorative plate, a business house, a headstone, a street name, a horse trough.
Every big name from the Age of Wool but one.
Edmonds.
In fact, nowhere in Bradford today will you find the name – not on a commemorative plate, a business house, a headstone, a street name, a horse trough.
Not
even in the phone book.
Like they were never there.
Doesn’t seem fair somehow.
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