A winter day in the early years of the 20th century. The trees are leafless and there’s a touch of frost or snow lying on the ground. Eight men with spades, rakes and mattocks, one patient horse pulling a… Well, what is it? Two wooden wheels, fit for a grand haywain, and a low-slung, lidded tank or hopper. Was the arrival of this contraption a special occasion (as the clean collars and ties suggest) or did a photographer just happen to pass by as the men debated how to get the thing out of the frozen mud?
All I know for certain is that the man behind the horse with a mattock over is shoulder is my great-grandfather, George Hobbs. That’s him in the family photo below too, with his wife Kate and sons Arthur and Edward Sidney (always known as Sid). Judging by the ages of Sid and Arthur that photo must have been taken about 1901. George Hobbs worked at Russell Farm, Wendover for more than ten years and the family lived in a farm cottage. My mum remembered being told that her grandfather was a stockman, though according to census returns he was a gardener in 1901 and a farm labourer ten years later. Kate was a dressmaker, though the census records her simply as ‘wife’.
(Click on any photo to view the gallery)
There are just two more photos of Great-Grandpa George in our family collection, both taken in the garden of the terraced house in Chesham to which he and Kate retired. In one, fuzzy snapshot George and Kate stand erect and unsmiling against a background of cabbage plants. My guess is they weren’t too pleased to be photographed in their old gardening clothes. The other (above) is a cheerful family group, admiring a fine crop of tomatoes.
Sid Hobbs, the younger boy in the family portrait, was my grandfather. He was born in 1894, just two years after the Metropolitan Railway opened the line to Aylesbury with a station at Wendover. Sid’s childhood was rooted in the countryside where generations of his ancestors had lived and worked. His grandfather, Jabez Hobbs was a shepherd at King’s Ash, just three miles from Russell Farm. His great grandfather, Marediff Hobbs, a farm labourer, had lived for fifty years at nearby Swan Bottom, where Sid had numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. By the age of fifteen Sid was leaving his country childhood behind him, walking the two miles from the farm cottage to the station each morning and catching the train to work at Aylesbury Town station where he was a goods clerk. He never looked back.
My mum, an only child, remembered her parents taking her for one country walk each year, always on Easter Monday. Each year they caught the train from Amersham to Wendover and walked through the woods to Haddington Hill, overlooking the countryside where Sid grew up. Then back to the station and home to Amersham in time for tea.
Yesterday’s mystery photos were all taken in the courtyard of the Grande Mosquée de Paris, built in the 1920s to a design inspired by the ancient Al Quaraouiyine mosque in Fès. The style has been described as hispano-mauresque so both Sue, who guessed Morocco, and Margaret who saw links to Moorish architecture in southern Spain, were on the right track!
January 6, 2021 at 2:27 pm
Aren’t these old family photos fascinating? My own roots, way back, are in rural Suffolk, until poverty drove my immediate ancestors to try their luck in London. But just as you have a Jabez and a Marediff (what??) I have a Shadrack. Wonderful. They’d go down well in a school register these days!
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January 6, 2021 at 2:46 pm
Marediff wasn’t sure of his own name – it was spelled differently in every census!
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January 6, 2021 at 4:14 pm
That sounds about right. Spelling wasn’t a thing, was it?
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January 6, 2021 at 7:25 pm
Your heritage is local to where I live. I know Swan Bottom, Wendover and Amersham. I live in Chesham, close by all three places. I am intrigued by your “co-great grandmother” being a Rance. There are still many by the name of Rance in the local area and I wonder if it is a surname which has its origins in these parts. In fact the local cricket club here in Chesham has a number of Rance’s playing for them regularly.
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January 6, 2021 at 10:24 pm
What a coincidence! If you follow the link at the bottom of this post to my first Family Album post you can see some more of my Rance ancestors. I don’t know where the name comes from. I’ve traced our branch of the Rance family back to William Rance, born in Wendover in 1762, who lived in the Berkhampstead area for much of his life.
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January 6, 2021 at 11:56 pm
Where was Annie’s cottage on the outskirts of Chesham?
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January 7, 2021 at 12:29 am
Auntie Annie lived at 162 Chartridge Lane – it was a little, wooden bungalow that must have been demolished forty years ago.
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January 7, 2021 at 8:17 pm
It is on one of my walks that I take regularly. How interesting.
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January 7, 2021 at 9:53 pm
I guess the area has changed a lot since Annie’s days there.
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January 7, 2021 at 9:55 pm
I may send my protege around that area tomorrow.
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January 22, 2021 at 6:50 pm
I sent Lenny on a walk past your auntie Annie’s old house in Chartridge Lane earlier this week. There is a 1960’s bungalow occupying the plot, forming a pair of semi detached dwellings.
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January 22, 2021 at 10:05 pm
Thank you Dexter! I think the bungalow must date from the 1970s. Auntie Annie lived in the old wooden cottage until she died in 1975.
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January 22, 2021 at 10:27 pm
No problem. It is on one of our regular walk routes so I just got Lenny to take a look.
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July 21, 2021 at 12:07 pm
Hi Judith, I came across your blog, as I’m doing some family research on the Rance family that will be included in a book I’m working on at some point. The parents of the William Rance you mention are, I believe, Thomas Rance (1722-1773) and Mary Lovitt (b. 1722). They are my x5 great grandparents. Both were born in Wendover, as were the parents of Thomas – Robert Rance (1686-1756) and Katherine Tovey (1686-1751). My Great Grandfather Alfred Rance was born in Amersham, as was his Dad, William. Chesham also features quite heavily in my family tree. Now living in Lincs, I was born and bred in Luton underneath the east side of the Chilterns. What’s happening in the Wendover area re HS2 has caused me distress I must say. Take care – enjoy your walks, Dexter!
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July 25, 2021 at 11:07 am
Thanks for your message, Paul and apologies for my slow reply. Yes, Thomas and Mary Rance are my 5x grandparents too. My grandma, Ada Rance, grew up in Amersham and Chesham but I think the family tree had branched too many times by then for her to be closely related to your family. Best wishes for your research, Judith
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