Birth
Walter George, the third child of William and Elizabeth Chapman, was born at Hardington in 1837. He was the brother of Charles, Edwin and William. His father, William, was a weaver and later a labourer.
Occupation
In March 1851, Walter was a farm labourer living in his parents’ home at Oil Moor. By April 1861, he was a railway packer, a job he pursued for the rest of his life.
Marriage
On 15 March 1862, Walter married Sarah Burt at Pendomer. She was the aunt of Robert Burt.
Hardington Marsh
In 1871, Walter and Sarah lived in one of the railway cottages at Hardington Marsh.
Pendomer
Between October 1873 and November 1874, they moved to Pendomer.
Sudden death
On 15 May 1877, the thirty-nine-year-old Walter was taken ill while working as a packer on the railway and conveyed home. There, he died at about four o’clock the following morning. He left a widow and six children.[1] The inquest heard evidence that Walter had always been a delicate man and that he had been seized with a fit five minutes before he died. The jury returned a verdict of “Death from natural causes.”[2]
Strangely, his father, William, died about a week earlier.
Sarah’s later life
In April 1881, Walter’s widow, Sarah, was a farm servant living in a Pendomer cottage with her six children.
The family proved to be remarkably cohesive. Over the next twenty years, Sarah accompanied her sons, Charles, Frank and Henry, as they migrated in search of farm work. In April 1891, they lived at Rowden Mill, Caundle Stourton, and ten years later at the Lodge, Bentham Hill, Southborough, Kent.
By April 1911, her sons had given up agriculture for gardening and the building trade. By then, Sarah and all six of her children had settled in Bournemouth. Sarah, Samuel, Charles and Annie lived at 51 South Road, Henry at 57 South Road, Walter at 265 Windham Road, and Frank at 267 Windham Road.
Sarah’s death
Sarah died at Bournemouth in 1927, aged 83.
References
[1] Somerset County Gazette, 19 May 1877, p. 11.
[2] Western Gazette, 25 May 1877, p.5.
