Introduction
After her mother’s early death, Lilian took on the responsibility for keeping house for her widowed father and younger siblings while also working as a glove machinist. Although she spent nearly her entire life at Long Sutton, she holds a place in Hardington history because she was visiting her grandparents at Lyatts when the 1921 census was taken.
Early life
Lilian was born on 29 September 1896 at Martock, the third of seven children born to Arthur Shire and his wife Alma (née Rogers).[1] Arthur worked as a baker. In about 1900, the family moved to the Bath suburb of Twerton, where Arthur took a position as a foreman bread maker. Between 1905 and 1907, they returned to South Somerset, settling in Long Sutton. This move marked a significant change in Arthur’s circumstances: from supervising bread production in Bath to working as a farm labourer. In May 1911, Alma died at the age of forty.
In October 1913, Lilian’s eldest brother, Walter James, emigrated to the Falkland Islands to become a sheep farmer. After just one year, he drowned in a boating accident and was buried at Port Stanley.[2] This tragedy must have deeply affected the family, occurring only a few years after the death of Lilian’s mother.
The census taken on 19 June 1921 recorded Lilian at two locations: at her home in Long Sutton, where she was listed as her father’s housekeeper, and as a visitor to her grandparents, Walter and Sarah Shire, at Lyatts, Hardington Mandeville. In the latter return she was described as a leather glove machinist working at home for S. Read of Long Sutton.
Marriage and family life
On 23 September 1922, Lilian married Frederick Charles Crumb at Long Sutton Church.[3] Frederick, who was ten years older than Lilian, was born at Langport in 1886. Before their marriage, he had served in the 2nd East Lancashire Regiment, both before and during the First World War. After returning to civilian life, he worked first as a van driver and later as a gardener.
Lilian and Frederick settled at Long Sutton, where they had two children: Alma Beatrice May, born 1925, and Walter John, born 1928. By 1939, they lived in a council house at 14 Martock Road.
Frederick died in the Bridgwater registration district in 1956 at the age of sixty-nine.[4] Lilian died in the Yeovil registration district in 1976 at the age of seventy-nine.
Conclusion
Lilian’s life illustrates the responsibilities that often fell upon young unmarried women after the death of a parent. Following her mother’s death, she kept her father’s household while earning an income from glove making before eventually establishing a family of her own. Her presence in the Hardington return of the 1921 census provides a glimpse of the continuing connections between different branches of the Shire family.
References
[1] Civil registration birth index; 1939 Register; family reconstitution.
[2] Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960; Western Chronicle,29 January 1915, p.6; Commonwealth War Graves, 1914-1921.
[3] Langport & Somerton Herald, 30 September 1922, p.2.
[4] The Bridgwater registration district included Long Sutton.