Introduction
William Trigger’s life was shaped by the Exeter to Barnstaple branch line, where both he and his father were employed. For a period during the First World War, until about 1921, William served as a signalman at Hardington Marsh.
Childhood
William was born at Chulmleigh on 7 January 1854the second child of James and Mary Ann Trigger.[1] James had moved there from nearby Wembworthy to work as a farm servant. During the construction of the North Devon Railway between 1852 and 1854, he may have been employed as a navvy and later worked for the company as a platelayer.[2] In March 1852, he married Mary Ann, who was a lacemaker and the daughter of a local wheelwright. The couple settled west of the town near the railway; in 1871, they lived at Old Toll House and in 1881 and 1891, at Colleton Mill Cottage.
James and Mary Ann had six children, though two died young: Fanny in 1865, at the age of one and John in 1870, at the age of fourteen. Another child, Elizabeth, died at Dorchester on 5 December 1887, at the age of twenty-seven.[3] Their oldest son, Richard, also became a railway platelayer, while the youngest, James, served in the Royal Navy from 1888 to 1895.[4]
By the age of seventeen, William was working as an indoor farm servant at Ford Farm, Chulmleigh.
Upton Pyne
From about the 1870s to the First World War, William worked as a signalman on the Barnstaple branch line near Cowley Bridge, Exeter. For many years, he lived at Dewdney Court, a small group of dwellings close to the railway, and by 1911, he resided at Exe View Cottage, 7 Cowley Road.
On 27 June 1889, he married Jessie Saffin at St Sidwell’s Church, Exeter.[5] Although resident in the city at that time, she came from a rural background. Born on 11 July 1867 in Cheriton Bishop, she was the daughter of a farm labourer. By the age of three, she lived in Chagford, and at fourteen was a servant in Drewsteignton.[6]
Between 1890 and 1899, William and Jessie had three daughters and one son, though their eldest daughter, Lilian Alice, died in infancy.
Hardington
During the First World War, William, Jessie, and their son Leonard William moved to Hardington Marsh, where they lived in one of the railway cottages. Their two surviving daughters remained in Exeter: Helen Rosina, who worked as a schoolteacher at Mount Dinham Girls’ School, and Elsie Mary. who worked as a draper’s assistant in the High Street.
On 1 August 1918, the family returned to Upton Pyne for Helen’s marriage to Fred Ellis, a sailor whose parents kept the Three Horseshoes Inn. For her wedding, Helen wore an ivory crepe de chine dress embroidered with silk and lace, complemented by a veil and a wreath of orange blossom. [7]
By June 1921, Leonard was boarding in Yeovil while working as a clerk in the income tax office. On 15 November 1927, he married Kathleen Alice Mary Pearcy, a draper’s assistant, at Holy Trinity, Yeovil.[8]
Exeter
By June 1921, William was sixty-five and likely eligible for retirement. By 1939, he and Jessie were living at 38 Tarbet Avenue, Exeter, sharing their home with their daughter, Elsie, who probably acted as their carer. Elsie’s husband, Hubert Wright, lived separately at 81 Howell Road to care for his father.
William died in 1942 at the age of eighty-eight. Jessie remained at 38 Tarbet Avenue until her death on 1 April 1956 at the age of eighty-seven. She left an estate valued at £2,517 1s, a respectable sum for the widow of a railwayman.
References
[1] Civil registration birth index; 1939 register.
[2] Western Times, 21 January 1852, p.14; Globe, 5 August 1854, p.3.
[3] Express and Echo,12 December 1885, p.3.
[4] ADM 188/188/136961.
[5] Exeter and Plymouth Gazette. 5 July 1889, p.8.
[6] Civil registration birth index; 1939 register.
[7] Western Times, 6 August 1918, p.1; 8 August 1918, p.3.
[8] Western Gazette, 18 November 1927, p.16.
