Chinn & Clarke Reservoir Terrace Osler Street, Ladywood

[Stokkie]

My grandparents John and Sarah Maria Chinn lived at 15 Reservoir Terrace from the early years of the last century, having moved from Parker street. John worked as a gardener in a private house near the Botanical Gardens in Edgbaston, his wife as maid, then cook-housekeeper. Sarah-Maria was born on a narrow boat in Tipton Basin while John came from a family of nursery gardeners. I inherited a Victorian photograph album and persuaded mom, Edith Chinn b. 1908 to tell me the names which I scribbled on the back.(Much against her wish, but I knew this was the only way to record their identities as my grandparents died in the 1930s.) There are a very few pictures of them at work, most are studio portraits. Reservoir Terrace was close to Edgbaston Reservoir and reminded them of the countryside, even though the housing was congested and industry was close by. I'll post some pictures in this thread and add what context I have. First pair are John Chinn (1865-1932) Sarah Maria Clarke (1867-1939)

 

[Stokkie]

 

[Stokkie]

John had lived in Knowle and Edgbaston. They married in 1899 in King's Norton. Their employer had given them a set of wooden chairs as a wedding present. By 1901 he was working as a nursery gardener. The Chinns live at 9 Trafalgar Court, Parker St. They rapidly have two children who die young. By 1911 in the census, John gives his occupation as Labourer. His employer had no longer needed a private gardener, but was involved in setting up the National Telephone company. They employed John to dig holes and climb up poles. This was heavy work for him. His daughter Edith said that the family felt it shortened his life. John loved gardening and cultivated the garden at Reservoir Terrace. He entered flower shows and won this silver cup. Here he is with his mate in a telephone box.

 

[Stokkie]

Annie Elizabeth Chinn was born 1906 and died 1979. She was clever at school, she worked at Lucas and in the preparation for the Second World War in munitions, which paid danger money. Annie was interested in the latest ideas in the 1920s and 30s, she learned Esperanto. But she had ex-soldier boyfriends who took her to public meetings held by Oswald Mosley, a charismatic speaker who founded the British Union of Fascists in 1932. Moseley was heckled and his thugs attacked the hecklers and threw them out physically. Annie wisely decided that was no place for a woman. (According to her sister.) Annie did marry an ex-Coldstream guardsman, but who was entirely respectable. She married Herbert James Mills (Jim) who takes her off to his cottage in Northend, then in the depths of rural Warwickshire in April 1941. Jim had lost a wife and friends introduced them. Rural life must have been very different for Annie, her new husband lived in a cottage with no running water 'Because water had always been free from the hills.' In later life Annie became isolated, she had visitors, including the lady of the manor who supported them both. Jim roamed the countryside, ploughing with horses and mending roads. Annie wrote long letters to her sister, but they did not meet after the 1950s. {I wondered if I should share this personal story on the forum, but fascism and resistance to it is part of the political scene in working class Birmingham.} Annie and Jim had no children.At Jim's funeral I represented the family and learned that she was his third wife, his previous wives deceased.

 

[Stokkie]

My Mother, Edith Chinn was born in 1908 and died in 1979. Age 14, Edith worked for Hales & Son Wholesale Grocers. At first bagging sugar. Warehouse in Leach Street. Edith had all her teeth removed probably as a 21st birthday present. This was not unusual for the working classes in the days before fluoridation of the water supply. She wore false teeth as did many of her generation. Edith developed 'hammered toes' as a result of wearing the same shoes each year as a child, they could be resoled and heeled by her father. She had an operation which removed the second toe of each foot and cut sections from her remaining toes. She was able to walk freely when young, but as she got older the great toe moved to fill the space resulting in painful bunions. Her father died in 1932 and her mother in 1939. Edith and her sister cared for their mother who 'went off her legs' in the 1930s and lay on a bed below the window so that neighbours could pay court to 'Old Lady Chinn'. They would find continental radio stations to play music to Sarah Maria Annie married in 1941and moved to rural Warwickshire leaving her sister the sole occupant. Edith left Hales in 1939 to work for CWS wholesale. 1n April 1943 she married a Smethwick man George Littlewood who was a toolmaker at Chamberlain and Hookham. He earned good money and the couple were able to move to their own house with a long garden in Bearwood, Smethwick. They loved gardening and Edith had learned much about plants from her father. They had a son, rather unexpectedly late in life. But George died of hypertension and kidney failure in 1956, leaving Edith with an eight month old child. She was a great walker and I remember us walking miles in Clent, Frankley Beeches, Romsley and the Lickey Hills.

 

[mikejee]

I was a bit surprised to hear about removal o teeth o 18th birthday. I know that often happened as a present, but thought it was usually on the 21st birthday

 

[Morturn]

I was a bit surprised to hear about removal o teeth o 18th birthday. I know that often happened as a present, but thought it was usually on the 21st birthday

I have come across these acts of dental clearance before. Some say its done to make a working class girls more attractive for marriage. With poverty, the potential spouse would not have to find the money for future dental treatment.

I also have been told that because of no NHS, people had it done as a one off to just get it out the way and save money. All of my grandparents had it done

 

[Stokkie]

I was a bit surprised to hear about removal o teeth o 18th birthday. I know that often happened as a present, but thought it was usually on the 21st birthday

You are probably right, Mike. Perhaps mum working with sugar and my assumption that we become adult at 18 led me to misremember. I'll edit post. Her false teeth never gave her any trouble, unlike her feet.

 

[Stokkie]

Sadly no street parties in my album. But here are young John and Sarah Maria in their working clothes with Anne Southall (Sarah Maria's grandmother - old lady in white dress) Woman in black dress is I think John' older sister Caroline, who never married and was a cook in service. She later became an invalid and lived in the households of other family members.) They look a bit severe, but photographs required the sitter to stand or sit very still even outside. Don't know the venue or occasion. Not Reservoir Terrace I think. Perhaps they were working for their employer?

 

[Stokkie]

John Chinn mowing the lawns with his employer's children Robert and Mary Coleman. Their father Alfred Coleman was a Telegraph Engineer who became Regional Superintendent for The National Telephone Company. He lived in substantial houses in Woodbourne Road, then Stanmore Road. John and Sarah Maria seem to have had a good relationship with the Colemans, indeed their gift of a set of dining chairs was generous (I inherited them and they are handsome). But when Alfred became a manager for the telephone company he decided he no longer needed (or perhaps was inclined to afford a private gardener), so he got John a job as a labourer with the telephone company. This was very much harder physically than gardening. John's health began to suffer. Photo must before 1911 as John is no longer a gardener by the census. The relationship between servants and their master is interesting and different to the gilded view of Downton Abbey.

 

[Stokkie]

The little boy with the wheelbarrow is Robert Baxendell Coleman, who qualified as a medical doctor and became a surgeon publishing on spinal anaesthesia. I wonder when he was training in Birmingham he was ever taken into the Ladywood back-to-backs. The children are playing at work above and John posing for the master or mistress's view of idyllic work for the album. He was given this copy as a memento.

 

[Stokkie]

Annie Maria Westwood (1848- 1879). She gave birth to Sarah-Maria on a canal barge in Tipton Basin. My maternal great grandmother. She married George Clarke when she had given birth to Sarah-Maria in 1867 and after a further four children died at the age of 31 in 1879. Her husband left with young children remarries a widow Elizabeth Westwood in 1883. She has young children of her own, so this is a practical solution. I think that Annie Maria and Elizabeth must have been related, but so far I have not been able to see their exact relationship. The Westwood family was extensive. I do not think that Annie Maria ever lived in Ladywood. She and George lived in Swan Street Netherton.