Thanks for that nice comment, Janice, and I'm really grateful to you, MWS and others for your generous interest and for contributing so much to this thread. Beyond my wildest expectations! Down to me, now, to pull it all together, amend our existing family history as appropriate and let my as yet unborn gt. grandchildren make of it all as they will! Just a bit of further information from this end which might be of a bit of interest to members......
Chris
In case this is of slightly broader interest, here is my elder brother's 1997 description of our grandfather, George Thomas Snook (1871-1949): it gives a glimpse of life in the city in the 1920s and 1930s with all its links back to the Edwardian and Victorian eras. (Information newly provided in this thread adds to the description and clarifies several points which were still a mystery in our family history in the 1990s). I hope in due course to add my own few memories of George Tovey and Eveline/Emily Black in roughly the last seven years of George's life.
A MEMORY OF GEORGE THOMAS TOVEY (1871-1949) IN THE PERIOD 1925-1949
..... It is now time to return to the story of my grandfather, George Thomas Tovey who was the child of Elizabeth Snook (née Tovey), now married to George Snook. We are still without any firm evidence of his whereabouts during the first ten years or so after the break-up of his marriage to Rebecca Tovey (née Brown). Mother (Elsie Tovey) used to tell us the occasional anecdote about him, but whether these tales had come from direct childhood recollections or had been related to her by her grandmother, Elizabeth Snook, there is no way of telling. One such tale told of George having volunteered for Army service, and finding that it was not the life for him; he ended by being bought out of his contract, no doubt by George Snook. We know nothing more: it might have happened in the 1890s, or perhaps after 1905. We do know that he was at one time an accomplished musician; there are a few members of the Tovey family scattered over the preceding generations who possessed musical talent, and maybe some of this had come down to George. Once he showed me his instrument - a trumpet or cornet - when I was quite small, and I was told that he used to be employed in an orchestra in one of the music-halls in Birmingham's Hurst Street. Mother's own marriage certificate showed her father's trade or profession to be a Musician. It is possible that he received his musical training during his Army service, but, again, we have no evidence of this.
The earliest documentation to pinpoint the latter-day location of George Tovey that I have been able to unearth is contained in the Electoral List of Voters in the Parish of Harborne, Birmingham, published for Spring 1919. This was one of the first lists after the introduction of universal suffrage (over-21s for men and over-30s for women) after the end of the First World War.
At 35 High Street, Harborne, are named:
BLACK Eveline Emily - Occupational Qualification : Eligible to vote in Parliamentary and Local Elections
TOVEY George Thomas - Residential Qualification : Eligible to vote in Local Elections only.
Before the war there had been a more restricted system of voting eligibility: basically, only householders could vote, and this included some single women (for local elections only), but I could not find any reference to a George Tovey in this district before 1919. There was a story which, as a child, maybe I was not supposed to overhear, that George had rescued Mrs Black from a brutal and violent husband, had thrown him out of the house, and then moved in with her. So far as I was concerned, she was his housekeeper and I frequently met her when Mother took me over to Harborne for tea with them. I remember that I had to call her "Auntie Peggy Black", which was quite a mouthful for a four-year-old!
These regular afternoon excursions to Harborne from Erdington, where we were living at the time, like those to other relatives and described in earlier volumes of this History, played a very useful part in introducing a small boy to the extensive geography of the City of Birmingham. The trips began with a lengthy tramcar ride from Tyburn Road to the terminus in Steelhouse Lane, then a short walk to the bus stop either outside Grey's store in Bull Street, or around the corner by the Cathedral railings in Colmore Row. The bus itself would be one of the typical "orange-box-on-wheels" type, with rickety outside staircase, but they all had roofs on, for the Birmingham open-toppers were already history. Bus and tram rides with Mother were always taken "inside", i.e. in the lower saloon: only when Father came with us could we venture upstairs, where he would smoke his pipe. We would proceed along Broad Street to Five Ways, then turning into Harborne Road, finally alighting in the High Street, at the City end of the rather straggling village. Grandfather's house was certainly old-fashioned to look at and in the middle of a short terrace of two-storey buildings. At first glance they looked like typical back-to-back court houses, but inside they were better than that: there were two rooms upstairs and two down, and outside a wash-house (which they called the "brew-uss") and a brick-paved back yard; but the single outside w.c. was shared by several families. I remember that in the earliest days, Grandfather kept poultry and also a loft of homing pigeons. The back door was approached by a tunnel entry, also brick-paved to the yard; the front door, together with the "parlour" into which it opened, was rarely, if ever, used. The gas-lit living-room had one of those large black kitchen ranges, with a big tabby cat close by, and there was a gas cooker just behind the door, perched at the head of the cellar steps. Next door at No. 33, according to the List of Voters, lived a couple called Arthur and Minnie Green. I can remember them quite well, but cannot say what became of them.
We often visited Harborne around Christmas-time, when Mother would take various gifts, including a Christmas pudding. This would be one of a number which she always made herself, as most people did in those days. Sometimes, when we arrived, a butcher would be there, killing and dressing the poultry, which, doubtless, made a welcome contribution to the household income for the festive season. Grandfather worked for the latter part of his life as a production foreman at the Cadbury factory in Bournville, and after his retirement, he always received a Christmas gift carton of assorted products from the old firm. Neither he nor Mrs. Black were fond of such items, so I was usually the fortunate recipient of the festive offerings. After World War II, I used to call in on Grandfather occasionally, and we would enjoy a pint or so of M & B ale at his local hostelry, which I believe was called the Fish Inn.
Mrs Black had died about 1947, and Grandfather himself died in April 1949, just after I had married and whilst we were still away on honeymoon. Father was abroad on business, on his way by sea to Australia, and so Mother had to make all the arrangements, but I returned in time to attend the Witton Cemetery funeral. The Death Certificate reads:
"On 19 April 1949 at 35 High Street U.D. [Harborne], George Thomas Tovey, male, 78 years, Foreman Chocolate Works (Retired), from Acute Cardiac Failure, Myocardial Degeneration, and Carbuncle on Neck, certified by D.K. McCook L.R.C.P. Informant E. Myers, daughter, of Streetly, Sutton Coldfield, present at the death. Registered 21 April 1949, before E.M. Johnson, Deputy Registrar for the District of Birmingham, Sub-District of Harborne in the County of Birmingham. Countersigned by H.C. Parry, Registrar."
There is a tailpiece to this part of the story, which may be of some interest. In April 1988, an article appeared in the Birmingham Post concerning "a row of historic Birmingham cottages, numbers 29-37 Harborne High Street, which were built for nail-makers and have been occupied for 140 years". Doubtless the workers used to carry on their trade in back-yard outhouses, typical of Black Country practice. Harborne was an outpost of the Black Country, being at one time a part of Smethwick, and situated within the county of Staffordshire. The newspaper article, which was accompanied by a photograph of the houses, with No. 35 well visible, appeared because of local objections to the proposal by a businessman to convert these houses, one of which he already owned, into office premises. I never heard the final outcome of the application for planning consent, nor can I say whether these old properties are still standing .....
Graham Myers, 1997
© The Myers Family 1997 - 2025
