Introduction

This article is a micro-study of migration, focusing on the lives of Arthur and Kate Smith, a married couple who lived at West Coker and Hardington in the early twentieth century.

Arthur’s childhood

Arthur was born in Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham, on 2 April 1880.[1] His father, Thomas Smith, the son of a farm labourer, had moved to Handsworth from the Worcestershire village of Chaddesley Corbett some twenty years earlier.[2] He found work as a hairdresser, and by the time Arthur was born, he had his own business at 151 Booth Street, employing one assistant and one apprentice.[3]

During Arthur’s childhood, his parents boldly decided to leave Birmingham and make a fresh start at Great Malvern, even though it meant his father becoming an employee again. By April 1891, the family had settled at Fernbank, Upper Road, North Malvern, where Arthur’s father worked as a hairdresser’s assistant.[4]

The move proved successful, and by 1901, Arthur’s father had his own business again, operating as a hairdresser, stationer, and umbrella maker at Ivy House, 78 North Malvern Road.[5] When he retired in about 1907, the business passed to his son, Ebenezer Smith, a former Royal Marine, who ran it until he died in 1946.[6]

In 1901, Arthur was a blacksmith, living with his parents at Ivy House.[7]

Courtship and marriage

While in his twenties, Arthur met and fell in love with Kate Blanche Parsons, a young woman who had, as a young child, migrated to the area with her parents from West Coker. Her father, George Parsons, was employed as a malster in the village of Guarlford from about 1880 to 1897.[8] When he returned to Somerset to run the New Inn at West Chinnock, Kate stayed near Malvern, living with her married sister, Elizabeth, at Madresfield.[9]

Part of Arthur and Kate’s courtship must have taken place at a distance because, immediately before their marriage, Arthur worked as a mechanic in Coventry.[10]

Arthur and Kate married at West Coker church on 20 May 1907.[11]

Married life

Their decision to settle in West Coker probably rested on the availability of engineering work at Petters factory in Yeovil. The 1911 census recorded Arthur as a driller in an oil engine factory. The 1921 census recorded him as an oil engines driller at Petters Engineering Works at Westlands.[12]

In 1911, Arthur and Kate lived at St Martin’s Terrace, West Coker. [13] In 1914, they lived in East Street and in 1921, they lived in Chur Lane.[14] By 1939, they had crossed the parish boundary into Hardington and were living at Coker Hill, in a house they named “Malvernia,” in fond memory of earlier times.[15]

Arthur died in 1946, aged 67; Kate died in 1959, aged 81.[16]

They had two sons: George Joseph (1910-1996) and Reginald Thomas (1911-2001). The two brothers ran a garage together in East Street, West Coker.[17]

References

 

[1] Civil Registration Birth Indexes; 1939 Register, RG11, piece 2832, folio 81, page 14.

[2] HO107, piece 2037, folio 57, page 19.

[3]; RG11, piece 2832, folio 81, page 14.

[4] RG12, piece 2323, folio 99, page 10.

[5] RG13, piece 2784, folio 129, page 3.

[6] Ebenezer returned to Great Malvern after serving with the Royal Marines. His son, Geoffrey Herbert Smith, was born at Great Malvern in 1907. Collingbourne Marriage Register: entry for 19 June 1897; RG14, piece 17652; RG15, piece 13672, page 28; UK probate calendars.

[7] RG13, piece 2784, folio 129, page 3.

[8] RG11, piece 2920, folio 150, page 85: RG12, piece 2332, folio 39, page 13. George Parsons’s daughter, Lillie, was born at Guarlford in 1880.

[9] Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 18 October 1897, p.3; RG13, piece 2297, folio 71, page 4; RG13, folio 2783, folio 30, page 7.

[10] West Coker Marriage Register.

[11] West Coker Marriage Register.

[12] RG15, piece 11308, schedule 144.

[13] RG14, piece 14387.

[14] Voters’ list of West Coker, 1914; RG15, piece 11308, schedule 144.

[15] 1939 Register.

[16] Civil Registration Death Indexes.

[17] Trade Directory, 1935.