Introduction

George Purchase Chester initially worked as a farm labourer and a carpenter before becoming a railway labourer around the time of his marriage in 1876. He and his wife lived in a railway cottage at Hardington Marsh until about 1899 when they relocated to Barry Lane, where George worked as a farmer. Following the death of his wife in February 1915, George fell into a deep depression and tragically committed suicide nine months later.

Childhood

George was born in 1851 at Hardington, the second child of Benjamin and Harriett Chester. He was baptised “George Purchase Chester,” but other records omit “Purchase” as his middle name.[1]

George’s father, Benjamin, was a weaver, and the family resided in Barry Lane.

In July 1870, George’s mother, Harriet, died, aged 41.  George’s father, Benjamin, remarried in about September 1876.

Early occupations

George was a farm labourer by the age of nine and a carpenter by the age of twenty. By the time he married in November 1876, he had secured a position as a railway labourer.

Marriage

His father’s remarriage may have motivated George to leave home. In November 1876, he married Fanny Burford at Luppitt. Fanny was the illegitimate daughter of Eliza Burford. Three years after Fanny’s birth, her mother married Francis Lowman, a farm labourer, and they established their home at Shelf Cottages, Luppitt, where Fanny grew up.

Residences

George and Fanny lived in one of the railway cottages at Hardington Marsh for about twenty years. After his widowed stepmother left Hardington in about 1899,George and Fanny moved to Barry Lane where George worked first as a general labourer and then as a farmer.[2]

Wife’s death

Fanny died on 7 February 1915, aged about 61, after a long illness.[3]

George’s death

After Fanny’s death, George became too depressed to work. Dr Colmer treated him as a patient but to no avail. On 19 November 1915, George cut his throat with a pen knife, inflicting a deep wound that led to his death five days later. At the inquest, the jury found that he died from “exhaustion and septic absorption from a wound self-inflicted, whilst in a state of unsound mind.”^[4]

George died intestate, leaving an estate valued at £205-13s-4d.

Children

George and Fanny had one son, Albert George, born on 26 September 1878. He married Alice Mabel Hawker at Hardington in 1913, and they had one child, Leonard Alan.

References

[1] The use of the name “Purchase” derives from the unusual circumstances of George’s father, Benjamin. He was the illegitimate son of Harriet Chester, who married Edward Purchase in 1838. It is unclear if Edward Purchase was Benjamin’s biological father. The 1841 census recorded Benjamin’s surname as Purchase, but other records list it as Chester.

[2] The voters’ lists record George at Hardington Marsh up until 1899 and at Barry Lane from 1900 onwards.

[3] The Civil Registration Death Index states Frances’s age as 60, but her birth was registered in the second quarter of 1853; Western Chronicle 3 December 1915 p. 6.

[4] Western Chronicle 26 November 1915 p, 4; 3 December 1915 p, 6.