William Edworthy was born around 1852 in Coldridge, Devon, to William Edworthy (about 31), a farm labourer, and Mary Edworthy (nee Harris) (about 28).
William was the fourth of eleven children (four girls and seven boys):
- Ann 1841 - 1855 (about 14)
- John 1845 -
- Elizabeth 1849 -
- William 1852 -
- George 1854 -
- Samuel 1856 -
- Ellen 1858 -
- Louis/Lewis 1861 -
- Frederick 1863 -
- Frank 1866 -
- Mary 1869 -
Sadly when William was about three years old, his eldest sister Ann passed away, aged about fourteen.
The elder siblings, including William, left home at a very young age to enter service at nearby farms. On the 1861 Census, William, only nine years old, is on the next page from his family, working and living at Rull Farm, East Worlington, as a farm servant. Also working on the farm was 16-year-old Samuel Edworthy, not to be confused with William's younger brother Samuel, but perhaps an older cousin. William's father was a farm labourer - did he also work for farmer Samuel Price at Rull Farm?
Alas information relating to William's teenage years eludes me, and I cannot find him on the 1871 Census, when he would have been about nineteen.
We next find William in 1877, aged twenty-five, having moved as a young man from the mid Devon countryside into the city of Exeter, where he worked as a carrier. A carrier was a driver of a (horse-drawn) vehicle for transporting goods. Did he learn to drive a horse and cart as a young lad on the farm?
On 21st May 1877, William (25) married Bessie Staddon Nott (19) in her native Morchard Bishop. At the time of their marriage, William was living in St Sidwell's, Exeter. The young couple would set up home in William's adoptive Exeter.
William and Bessie had six children (four daughters and two sons):
- Edith Florence Jessie 1878 - 1895 (16)
- William Gilbert John 1880 - 1949 (69)
- Beatrice May 1892 - 1969 (86 or 87)
- Cora Agnes 1886 - 1907 (21)
- Frederick 'Fred' Cecil 1888 - 1975 (87)
- Winifred Violet 1895 - 1982 (87)
Alas two of their children passed away young: Edith, aged sixteen, in 1895, when William was about forty-three; and Cora, aged twenty-one, in 1908, when William was about fifty-five.
In 1881, William, Bessie and their eldest son could be found living at 11 Follett's Buildings, St Mary Major, Exeter:
Follett's Buildings had been built only seven years earlier in 1874, when an improvement scheme headed by Exeter's mayor Charles Follett had seen their construction. With Exeter's recent cholera outbreaks in mind, Follett oversaw the building of these new tenements of between two and fours rooms, with each tenement having a larder, scullery, water supply, coal cellar and water closet!
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| Later photograph of Follett's Buildings |
The 1881 Census lists William as working as a carman (a variation of a carrier). The baptism records of William's children William Gilbert (1880) and Cora (1886) list William's occupation as a wagoner; whilst the baptism record of William's son Fred (1888) lists William's occupation as a vanman. All are variations of the same job.
By the time of William's daughter Cora's birth in 1886, William, aged about thirty-four, and his family had moved to Hoopern Street, also in Exeter. There Cora was privately baptised on the day of her birth - a practice often done if the child was not expected to live long. Less than a month later, William's mother Mary passed away, aged about sixty-two, in East Worlington.
Possibly due to complications at her birth, Cora retained only the abilities of a very young infant. She was unable to talk, and had to be washed, dressed, fed etc by others. William and Bessie tried to care for Cora at home, but struggled. Cora was initially sent to Earlswood Asylum in Surrey, but in 1904 William and Bessie got her back closer to her home in Exeter and she spent the remainder of her short life in Digby Hospital (Exeter City Asylum). Cora passed away from phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis or a similar progressive wasting disease), aged twenty-one, on 29th December 1907.
The family were still living at Hoopern Street in 1888, when Fred was baptised, but sometime in the early 1890s, they moved to 64 Howell Road, near the railway station. On his youngest daughter Winifred's 1895 baptism record, William's occupation is listed as a railway guard. Previously William had been a carman, and many carmen were employed by the railway for local delivers and collections of goods and parcels. William's sons would both later also work for the railway.
By 1901, William and his family had moved down the road from 64 to 54 Howell Road:
Seemingly no longer a railway guard, in 1901 William was back working with horses, as it seems he did for most of his working life. It is nice to picture William with his horse and cart.
William passed away, aged about fifty-nine, in January 1911, in Exeter. William and his daughters Edith and Cora were all buried at Exeter Higher Cemetery in Heavitree, Exeter, but being poor their graves are alas unmarked. After William's death, his son Fred, aged twenty-two, became the breadwinner and supported his widowed mother Bessie and youngest sister Winifred.
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