In March 1901, James Smith Conway, aged 43, was a railway platelayer living at Hardington Marsh.
Birth
James, born at Netherbury in about 1858, was the son of Ambrose, a farm labourer, and Elizabeth Conway.
Sherborne
Between 1861 and 1871, James moved with his parents to a house near Wyke Farm, Sherborne.
Bradford Abbas
In the 1870s, James and his parents moved half a mile west to Bradford Abbas.
Occupations
James was a labourer by the age of fifteen. By twenty-three, he was a railway labourer.
Marriage
On Christmas Day 1877, James married Sarah Gill at Bradford Abbas. She was the daughter of Thomas and Caroline Gill.
Married life at Bradford Abbas
By April 1881, James and Sarah lived at 2 Railway Huts, Bradford Abba. They lived in the village for about another thirteen years and had seven children there.
Hardington
In about 1894, James and his family moved to Hardington Marsh, where they remained until about 1902.
James and Sarah’s three youngest children were born at Hardington, and one died there.
In March 1896, James stood for election to the parish council but was unsuccessful.[1]
Littleham
By April 1911, James and his family lived at 1 Station Cottages, Littleham, three miles from Bideford.
Littleham Station was on the line between Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton, which opened in 1903.
The London and South Western Railway Company may have arranged James’s transfer to act as a foreman platelayer.
James and Sarah were still there ten years later.[2
While they were at Littleham, James and Sarah’s oldest daughter, Martha Jane, died in Croydon, aged 29, two years after her marriage in 1905.
Death
James and Sarah both died in the Wells area in 1932, in or just before the second quarter. James was 74, and Sarah was 73. Their last residence may have been the home of their married daughter, Ada Parsons.
Children
James and Sarah had four sons and six daughters, eight of whom were still alive in 1911.
References
[1] Western Chronicle, 13 March 1896, p.7.
[2] By 1921, the six cottages were called “Railway Cottages.”
