Stories and speculation about the Whitechapel murders dominated the press in 1888 and Bilston Street in Wolverhampton gained press coverage when a former resident, Catherine Eddowes, became Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim.
Catherine hailed from a Wolverhampton family of tinplate workers, then a major industry in the town. Her father, George, had been an apprentice at the Old Hall works, close to the site of Wolverhampton’s public library today and Bilston Street. Her grandfather, Thomas Eddowes, became the most senior worker at the Old Hall works.
Her father, George, moved his family to London following his involvement in trade union activities in 1843 when Catherine was nine months old. Catherine’s mother died in 1855 and her father in 1857, both of tuberculosis. Later that year, Catherine was sent back to Wolverhampton to live with her uncle, William Eddowes, and family at 50 Bilston Street, her home until she was caught stealing from her employers at the Old Hall works a few years later.
Montgomeryshire
Another young woman had left her home for Wolverhampton to reside on Bilston Street a few years earlier. Elizabeth Newell had been born at Tynywtre, a farm or cottage on a track leading from the village of Bettws Cedewain in the county of Montgomeryshire in Wales.
Her parents were Joseph Newell, an agricultural labourer, and Mary Morris, my great great great grandparents. Joseph was born in the parish of Llanwnog in 1787, into a family that worked largely as flannel weavers, farm servants or agricultural labourers, all typical occupations in rural Montgomeryshire.
Flannel weaving was a cottage industry carried out by handloom at the weaver’s home, possibly a winter occupation with agricultural work a summer occupation.
The county of Montgomeryshire was the principal manufacturer of Welsh flannels for around 300 years, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.
In “An Historical and Archaelogical Study of the Industrial Heritage of Newtown, Powys, Mid Wales” (2003), Mark Walters noted that during the 17th and 18th century:
The woollen industry in Montgomeryshire never developed beyond its rural and domestic focus. … the main reasons for this lack of cohesion and concentration within the towns were numerous. Arguably the most important reason was the subsistence level at which the majority of the rural workers operated on. This was so low that land holdings scarcely provided enough food and materials for families to survive on. Except for the more fertile alluvial valley soils, much of the county consists of uplands with poor acid soils which are resistant to agricultural improvement. The farms therefore had to survive on a combination of animal husbandry and small scale wool processing and this gave the industry in Wales its widely dispersed character. In addition, the positive glut of freely available fast-flowing water sources meant that wool-finishing mills were equally well dispersed throughout the county and did not need to concentrate in particular valleys. There was never, therefore, a large workforce that could afford to simply abandon their farms and move to seek work in the commercial town centres.
By the 1820s, the flannel weaving industry had begun to industrialise and centre in on the market town of Newtown. This is exemplified by the move of Joseph’s youngest brother, Edward, and his family from Caersws in the parish of Llanwnog to Newtown in the 1840s.
Weavers paid high rent to flannel manufacturers to live on the lower floors in back to back housing in three or four story houses. Families lived in two room accommodation on the lower floors and the top floors housed large open workshops, in effect a stepping stone between cottage industry and factory manufacture.
The Topographical Dictionary of 1833 commented that:
The skill and care bestowed by the masters on the finishing of the goods have distinguished the flannels of Newtown for unrivalled excellence of quality.
Joseph Newell’s wife, Mary Morris, was from Bettws Cedewain, the village where they married on 17 January 1812. Mary was pregnant and gave birth to her first child, Thomas, on 26 June later that year.
A second son, Joseph, born in 1815, died an infant in September the following year.
A third son, again christened Joseph, was born on 18 August 1817, by which time the Newells were residing in the parish of Tregynon, probably at Tynywtre.
Stephan was born at Tynywtre on 26 October 1821. Just eight months later, the Newells lost their first child, Thomas, who died at the age of 9.
Elizabeth was the couple’s only daughter and probably named after her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Smith.
Her birth in 1825 was followed by that of another son born in June 1828, again christened Thomas.
At some point between 1828 and 1831, the Newell family moved to the parish of Llanllwchaiarn, closer to Newtown, to live at Holly Bush, a farm or cottage at Gwestydd.
Richard was born at Holly Bush in July 1831. This child must have died before 1838 though as a final son was born to the family in April 1838 and also named Richard.
My great great grandfather, John, was born in July 1834.
Why migrate?
Both Elizabeth and her brother, Thomas, were in Wales in 1841.
Elizabeth resided at Holly Bush with her parents, her brother Joseph and his new wife Jane Davies, and her brothers John and Richard, then 6 and 3 years old. Three nursery children, Richard Lewis (3), Margaret Williams (3) and Catherine Evans (1) also lived in the household.
Elizabeth was 16 years old and had no recorded occupation but presumably did domestic chores and duties, helping to look after the younger children. Her brother, Thomas, was 13 and a farm servant on a neighbouring farm tenanted to George Bowen.
David W. Howell, professor of history at the University of Wales in Swansea, recorded that Wales was almost entirely agricultural in the middle of the nineteenth century (“Land and People in Nineteenth-Century Wales” 1977). Farmers held tenancy of farms and employed agricultural labourers and farm servants. Labourers were engaged on a weekly basis. Farm servants were children aged between nine and thirteen who boarded and lodged on the farm, working long hours from early morning to late evening. Howell went on to outline the abandonment of rural labour in the middle of the 19th century and the general decline in the number of persons engaged in Welsh agriculture owing to migration to industrial areas in England and Wales.
Both Elizabeth and Thomas moved to Wolverhampton between 1841 and 1851. This may have been after the death of their mother in 1844. Wolverhampton lies across the border between Wales and England almost directly east of Newtown and would have been the nearest large industrial town to Newtown.
Maybe, both Newell siblings had working opportunities that sounded more promising or exciting than staying in rural Wales or left for England simply seeking adventure and change. Howell claimed that rural workers migrated seeking out higher wages, shorter working hours and the social attractions of town life. In any case, the move was significant and to a destination beyond the closer possible attraction of Newtown. Both Elizabeth and Thomas had grown up in isolated cottages and farms in the beautiful rolling hills of Montgomeryshire, areas that remain quiet and rural today. Wolverhampton, in contrast, was a rapidly growing overcrowded industrial town that must have seemed noisy, dirty, ugly, confusing and exhilarating all at once.
By March 1851, Elizabeth Newell was living in the household of Enoch Evans, a roll turner, and his family on Bilston Street. She was a house servant, again carrying out domestic duties.
Wolverhampton’s population had grown from 12,566 at the beginning of the century to just under 50,000 by the middle of the century. Bilston Street alone was testament to this growth with residents from many counties in England as varied as Yorkshire, Devon or Berkshire as well as Scotland and Ireland. Elizabeth’s neighbours were the Bianchi family, furniture dealers from Italy, and Messrs Hallerer, Imbery and Wittmann, clock makers from Germany, resided a further four houses away.
Marriage
At some stage, Elizabeth met William Beddows, seven years her junior. William was born on 21 October 1832, the son of Joseph Beddows, a sawyer, who had moved from Bridgnorth in Shropshire to Ladymoor, then part of Sedgley, located between Wolverhampton and Dudley. William’s mother, Jane (Harper), developed stomach tumours and died aged 32 in March 1845 when he was 12 years old.
Joseph Beddows remarried less than three months later and resettled on Willenhall Road in Wolverhampton. Cholera broke out in Scotland in late 1848 and the epidemic hit Wolverhampton between 17 July and 13 November 1849. Joseph Beddows was one of the hundreds who died and was 40 years old when he died on 16 September.
William’s elder brother, Isaac, married later that year. By 1851, Isaac and his young family, William and his sister Mary were all living in the same household at Monmore Green. William was 18 and working in his father’s trade, sawing timber, possibly for coal mines.
William and Elizabeth married at St James’s church on 21 December 1851. William was just 19 but declared he was 20. Elizabeth was of ‘full age’. Elizabeth took at least five years off her age until the 1891 census when she her in her sixties. Interestingly, Elizabeth also stated her father was Joseph Newell, a farmer, designating a social status above that of agricultural labourer, maybe reflecting ambition or wishful thinking.
William and Elizabeth Beddows spent the first part of married life living on Coventry Street, off the Willenhall Road. Their only child, William, was born on 17 February 1854. At the time of the 1861 census, William gave his occupation as a sawyer and his youngest brother, George, was lodging with the family. George emigrated to Pennsylvania in the United States in 1869.
Siblings
Elizabeth’s brother Thomas, married Rebecca Williams in 1855 and moved to Goldthorn Hill, “a high district of scattered houses, extending into the parishes of Sedgley and Penn” according to the 1851 History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire. Thomas and Rebecca did not appear on UK census forms after 1861 and may have emigrated to New Zealand.
Elizabeth’s father continued to live at Holly Bush, his sons Richard (12) and John (15) employed as farm servants on neighbouring farms in 1851.
The reports on life in Wolverhampton reaching the Newell family back in Montgomeryshire must have been enticing. Richard migrated to Wolverhampton by the end of the decade and became a shingler in an iron works, working alongside an iron puddler manipulating puddled iron on an anvil. His marriage to Mary Ann Mace, the daughter of George Mace, a locksmith, took place at St John’s in Wolverhampton on 27 December 1860.
My great great grandfather, John, remained in Montgomeryshire, marrying a girl working as a servant on a neighbouring farm in the same month.
Mary Ann, their first child and my great grandmother, was born on 13 April 1862. Her sister Sarah was born in Wolverhampton in July 1865 meaning John must have followed his siblings to the town in the years between 1862 and 1865.
William Beddows & Co
The company of William Beddows & Co was founded in 1864 as a partnership. The principal business was producing pit props for the mining industry.
Some sources state that William’s partner was the owner of Albrighton Hall. The owner of Albrighton Hall was William Hanbury Sparrow, an ironmaster who developed investments in many businesses and owned considerable property and land. His impact on Wolverhampton was immense. He had interests in coal and ironstone mines, established the Bilston Banking company, owned and lived at Penn House, and donated the land to build St Philip’s church in Penn. He and his brother owned Bilston Mill and the highly successful Stow Heath Ironworks. He was worth a fortune and estimates of his wealth when he died in 1867 were between £1,300,000 and £1,500,000, making him a billionaire in today’s terms. He was well-respected and considered discreet, cautious and a man of common sense. A memorial to the Sparrow family can be found at St John’s church in Wolverhampton.
Stow Heath Ironworks was located on largely uninhabited land on the opposite side of Willenhall Road to Coventry Street. It is feasible that William Hanbury Sparrow was William Beddows’ partner and already did business with William Beddows or even employed him to produce the timber needed for his mines. An interest in a timber and sawing business would have been a logical extension to his business interests. Perhaps he saw something in the young William Beddows that told him he was making a wise investment.
Henry Theodosius Barker was definitely William Beddows’ partner and this partnership was dissolved in 1883:
Henry Theodosius Barker was born in Wolverhampton in 1841. He was the wealthy son of the ironmaster John Barker and grandson of George Jones who both founded the Chillington Iron Works with James Foster in 1822. The Chillington Works was also situated on the opposite side of Willenhall Road and can be seen on the map above.
John Barker died in 1852 and his sons, George and Thomas, took over Chillington Works buying out the other partners. George Jones Barker was the tenant of William Hanbury Sparrow at Albrighton Hall where his younger brother Henry Theodosius also lived.
It is possible that both William Hanbury Sparrow and Henry Theodosius Barker were partners in William Beddows and Company and maybe Henry Theodosius Barker first became a partner after William Hanbury Sparrow’s death in 1867. On the other hand, maybe sources are confused as to whether it was the owner or the tenant of Albrighton Hall who was William Beddows’ partner.
William Beddows (junior) worked as a clerk in an ironworks in 1871, possibly at the nearby Stow Heath Ironworks or Chillington Iron Works. A clerk, he was literate and the Beddows were beginning to distance themselves from manual labour as a means of making a living. William married Ellen Bagnall in 1877 and their daughter, Ellen Bagnall Beddows, was born on 1 July 1878. Ellen (senior) died at Coventry Street just one day later. She was 29 and the cause of death was given as inflammation of the lungs.
By 1881, Willliam was a timber merchant employing 16 men and my great grandmother, Mary Ann Newell, was working as a servant in the Beddows family household on Coventry Street.
Beddows & Co had established its business on Union Mill Street by 1881. Timber merchants, Williams and Stopford, were at 12 and 14 Union Mill Street in 1873 and these business premises might have been taken over by Beddows & Co. The entrance to the timber yard seems to have possibly been around number 11 and 12 Union Mill Street.
William (jnr) became acquainted with the daughter of John Smith, a master wheelwright employing 8 men, who lived at 11 Union Mill Street and in all likelihood did business with the timber yard.
William and Mary Ann Eliza Smith married on 1 September 1881. Their son, William John was born on 9 June 1882. A daughter, Elizabeth Sarah, was born at 17 Drummond Street (close to the Molineux football ground today) on 13 January 1884. Edward Charles Beddows was born on 27 April 1886 and George Frederick on 13 November 1887. William’s daughter, Ellen, from his first marriage died of scarlet fever at her grandparent’s house at Coventry Street on 12 July 1885, 11 days after her eighth birthday.
William Beddows (snr) became the sole proprietor of William Beddows & Co in 1883.
Beulah Villa
Charles Beech, a builder, bought a piece of land or garden ground in Tettenhall on 27 March 1860. After building a house on the land, he sold the land and premises to Richard Timmins in 1865. The property passed to Francis John Kidgell, a chemist, then to Mrs Elizabeth Braddley Davies and finally to Mrs Sarah Williams on 31 December 1878.
Sarah was the wife of Thomas Williams, a master photographer, and ran a photography studio on Darlington Street in Wolverhampton. The photograph of William Hanbury Sparrow above was by Williams of Darlington Street, possibly the principal photography studio in Wolverhampton at the time.
The house in Tettenhall was referred to as Beulah Villa for the first time. Sarah Williams sold the Villa to William Beddows in December 1890, granting him a mortgage for £600 with interest. The Beddows moved to Beulah Villa, a substantial property with ten rooms and represented a considerable change of status and fortune for the Beddows family.
Union Mill Street
The Illustrated Towns of England Business Review gave “descriptive sketches of notable business concerns” in Wolverhampton in 1897 and the following entry was made for William Beddows & Co, British and Foreign Timber Merchants, Sawing, Planing and Moulding Mills, Union Mill Street:
This business is of very old-established standing, and in its own special lines has one of the largest trading connections in Wolverhampton. The premises utilized by Messrs. William Beddows & Co. (who have owned the concern for the last twenty years) are in Union Mill Street; they are conveniently arranged and have a good canal frontage; while the extensive sawing, planing and moulding mills are fitted with specially designed machinery and plant for sawing, planing and preparing moulding to any pattern.
In their large yard, Messrs. Beddows & Co. have a splendid stock of British and foreign timber of all sorts, including a large assortment of dry red and white deals, for joinery, under sheds; while the entire collection is carefully selected, so as to ensure the satisfaction of customers. Mouldings, skirtings, prepared flooring, match boards, spokes, felloes (= the outer rim of a wheel, to which the spokes are fixed), shafts and colliery timber are supplied, the output from the mills of manufactured goods being an extensive one. The excellent facilities enjoyed by this firm, who employ numerous workmen, enable them to execute orders with due despatch, and to meet in a most satisfactory manner the busy trade that is in their hands. The concern is capably and energetically managed, good organisation being noticeable throughout.
Elizabeth’s brother, Richard Newell, worked as a shingler both in Wolverhampton and in Hartlebury but finally returned to Wolverhampton. There is a sense that the Beddows were then supporting the extended Newell family. By 1891, Richard had become the licensee of the Old Anchor Inn on Horseley Fields, around the corner from the premises Beddows & Co., and worked on his own account. His daughter Amy went to live and work at Beulah Villa at around the same time. She was employed as a cook but later as a ladies’ companion to Elizabeth Beddows. Richard died on 28 November 1902 at the age of 64 and was buried in Merridale Cemetery.
My great great grandfather, John Newell, worked in Wolverhampton as a carter and waggoner, presumably using his agricultural experience, and for some time as a labourer in an ironworks. He moved to live at 12 Union Mill Street around the same time as his brother Richard became publican at the Old Anchor Inn. His daughter, Elizabeth, lived and worked as a general servant at Beulah Villa and his son William worked at Beddows & Co.
In the last years of his life, John worked as a caretaker at the Union Flour Mill that loomed over the skyline at the end of Union Mill Street and faced the canal.
Union Mill was built at the beginning of the 19th to provide flour and bread at reasonable prices to the poor. This important historical building was unfortunately destroyed in a fire in 1989 and just a couple of outbuildings remain today. Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies note,
In 1812 Benjamin Mander of Wolverhampton promoted the Wolverhampton Flour and Bread Company which built and operated the Union Mill, together with the Union Poor House, as a philanthropic adjunct to his existing business ventures. The Union Mill was built in 1813. The company was modelled on the famous Birmingham Union Mill, largely as a charitable venture to provide cheap bread to the poor during the period of economic difficulty which followed the Napoleonic wars. The public welcomed the idea, but established millers and bakers were hostile to the scheme since it undercut their prices. Mander was charged with illegal combination by the millers and taken to court. The trial took place at Stafford in 1814, the jury deciding in favour of Benjamin Mander and the Union Mill. The Union Mill stood on the Birmingham Canal until 1989 when it was demolished following a fire.
John Newell died in 1906 and was buried in Wednesfield.
William Beddows (jnr)
Elizabeth and William Beddows celebrated their golden wedding anniversary on 21 December 1901. Both died at Beulah Villa, Elizabeth at the age of 77 on 28 June 1902 and William at the age of 73 on 25 July 1906. They are buried at St Michael’s and All Angels church in Tettenhall.
Their son, William, had worked at the timber company for a number of years and took over its management, moving his family back to Beulah Villa.
The interest on Beulah had been paid but not the principal of £600. William and Sarah Williams agreed to transfer the mortgage to an Edward Pryce on Christmas Eve in 1912. This mortgage was paid and title of the property was transferred back to William Beddows in January 1922. He died on 9 June 1924.
His sons William John and George Frederick sold Beulah Villa in October 1924 to Mrs Blanche Venus James, the wife of Henry Summerhill James, a son of the founder of the Wolverhampton Metal Company Ltd.
Grandchildren
William John Beddows was educated Wolverhampton Grammar School and became an assistant at Beddows and Co.
A keen sportsman, he played cricket and golf for Staffordshire. After joining the territorial forces before the First World War, he saw service as a Captain in the 3rd North Midland Brigade Royal Field Artillery (later 232 Brigade) throughout the war.
His military record was impressive. He was mentioned in despatches on three separate occasions and received the Military Cross for distinguished active service as well as the Territorial Decoration for long service in the Territorial Force. As a Colonel in the territorial army, he was sector commander of the 20th Brigade South Staffordshire Home Guard during the Second World War, “assigned to the defence of Wolverhampton”.
His marriage to Esme Lesa Mc Bean took place in October 1915. Esme was the daughter of a former mayor of Wolverhampton, Colonel Alexander McBean.
William John Beddows became a company director of Beddows & Co and served as a Justice of the Peace for Staffordshire. In the 1930s, he became the owner of Ackleton House in Shropshire where he lived until his death in 1962.
Elizabeth Sarah Beddows married Edgar Loam, a mechanical engineer, and lived in Swinton near Manchester. She then married a civil servant, Walter C Scott, and moved to London where she died in 1973.
Edward Charles Beddows had a long and exceptional medical and military career. He started his medical studies at the University of Birmingham in 1904 and was fully qualified in 1911. On completing his studies, he held house appointments at Birmingham General Hospital and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Lieutenant in 1913. He served in France throughout World War I and was awarded the Military Cross for distinguished active service and also mentioned in despatches in 1915.
After the war, he remained with the Corps and served in Gibraltar and Shanghai. He was commanding officer of the British Military Hospitals in Bareilly, India from 1937 to 1938, Nowshera (now Pakistan) from 1938 to 1939 and Lichfield from 1939, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
As commanding officer of the 6th Casualty Clearing Station from 1939 to 1940, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. Then, he commanded the 31st General Hospital from 1940 to 1941 and was Deputy Director Medical Services British troops in Northern Ireland from 1941 to 1943. In 1943, he was assistant Director Medical Services for the 6th Base Sub-Area and Deputy Director Medical Services North Africa District from 1944 to 1945. He was involved with the allied landings in Sicily and Italy and was wounded at Bari in Italy. Finally, he was Deputy Director Medical Services in Berlin from 1945 to 1946.
The British Medical Journal announced that Edward Charles Beddows had been awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for distinguished service in Italy on 9 September 1944. On retirement in 1946, he was awarded the honorary rank of Brigadier. The USA appointed him an Officer of the Legion of Merit in 1947.
Edward Charles had also been a cricket and golf player and he married Charlotte Rankin Maule Watson Stevenson in 1946 when he 59 years old. Charlotte had been a national hockey player for Scotland as a teenager but went on to be Scotland’s national champion of women’s golf and to represent Scotland internationally. The couple lived in Scotland when Edward Charles died in 1958.
George Frederick Beddows was also an assistant timber merchant at Beddows & Co., becoming a director with his brother, William John. He married Sylvia Matear in 1916 and had two sons. The family lived in Tettenhall and later moved to Histons Hill in Codsall. George Frederick died at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton in 1959.
Beddows & Co. ceased trading in 1967 and the company was liquidated..
relationship to me
Joseph Newell – Mary Morris (great great great grandparents)
John Newell (great great grandfather) – his sister Elizabeth Newell
Mary Ann Newell (great grandmother)
Albert Theodore Williams (paternal grandfather)