The history of the Minter family in Boxted, Essex

by Darren Bedingfield

February 2010

Darren Bedingfield is a descendant of the Minters of Boxted. His entertaining and well-illustrated history of the family spans six generations.

Click on the following links to read about each generation:

Edward Minter (1765 - 1853) and Mary Johnson

Thomas Minter (1806 - 1845) and Mary Ann Surry

William Johnson Minter (1833 - 1913) and Harriet Dobson

George Henry Minter (1856 - 1910) and Ellen Allen

George Henry Minter (1878 - 1948) and Rebecca Steed

Ella Mildred Minter (1910 - 1977) and James Joseph Dunn Powell

Edward Minter (1765 to 1853) and Mary Johnson

Edward Minter was the first of the family to move to Boxted and set up a family there. He appears in not only two censuses, newspaper reports, parish registers, archive catalogues, directories but was amongst the estimated 2% of the population who left a traceable will. He was taken to court by his daughter, had to help settle his son's debts when he went bankrupt and as an old man was the victim of burglary. Whilst some of these records have still to be sourced a substantial amount of information is available for a man who lived so long ago in the past.

Philimore marriage register for Edward Minter, 1787

This ruling created a substantial drain upon his resources yet one which may or may not have been merited during another period of hard times for the labouring community of which James Taylor, Hannah's husband, was a part. The introduction of the threshing machine had been the primary catalyst for the swing riots of 1830 where many labourers had been laid off across the land and the comparatively wealthy farmers were blamed for their introduction and their subsequent unemployment. It would, however, be an anomaly to find an actual family at odds over this yet whilst this is improbable, it is by no means impossible. It remains tempting to speculate this whilst awaiting existing evidence that this was indeed the case.

London Chronicle, 1844

Edward had more domestic troubles to attend to when next his son was declared bankrupt. The landlord of the Castle Inn, Colchester, William Minter was a man of many talents, being builder, dealer and chapman as well as publican and had witnessed many changes in the town during the course of his tenancy which lasted for over twenty years, not least of which was the coming of the railway. A guest had committed suicide here as well as the inn's ostler who hung himself from a bedpost.

On October 7th 1844 proceedings commenced against William and he found himself fortunate to be saved from ruin by the interception of both his father and brother in law John Elmer, the husband of his sister Sarah who put up for auction four acres and three roods of land and a house respectively and as a result William was able to continue his tenancy at the Castle.

Ipswich Chronicle, 1845

Aged 77 Edward had the misfortune to be targeted by a pair of ruthless housebreakers, John Appleby and Thomas Ladbrook in a local cause celebre. On the night of April 2nd 1842 the pair broke into his farm and stole a bottle of rum and other items from his house; from here the couple proceeded to Langham where they entered the premises of Benjamin Turner, a local farmer, their faces blackened and demanded 'money or blood' and proceeded to rob him of a purse containing sixty sovereigns, another with twenty shillings and an impressive list of food and clothing: they audaciously remained at his property for over an hour drinking his wine in an evening of abject terror. He attempted to raise an alarm by shouting murder out of his window but to no avail, being apprehended by the robbers: his servant James Smith was fortunate to escape with his life.

The pair were apprehended separately soon after: Ladbrook was sentenced to ten years transportation and Appleby for life: both were deported the following year, the former to Tasmania aboard the Bangalore and the latter to Norfolk Island aboard the Maitland. Norfolk Island was a remote outpost in the Pacific Ocean and was the destination for the most serious offenders and conditions here were harsher still for the prisoners than that of their Australian and Tasmanian counterparts and were regarded by many as a fate worse than death. Yet Appleby seemingly became the model prisoner as eleven and a half years into his sentence he was reprieved and released by the authorities in 1854 with a pardon to return to his homeland. The original burglary for which they were apprehended appears to have been premeditated, with both Edward Minter and Benjamin Turner being elderly widowed farmers with but a single servant lodging with them and they had little to offer in the way of resistance. Had these aggravated offences been committed a generation earlier before the reform of the draconian Georgian legal system the statutory punishment would have been public execution by hanging.

Edward lived for over a decade after; he died aged 88 and was buried in Boxted on January 2nd, 1854, Four of his children survived him, Sarah, William, Elizabeth and John and he left a will, proved 26th January, a copy of which today is held by the Essex county record office in Chelmsford and as a consequence it remains a certainty that more remains to be revealed about this man and his family over a century and a half after his death.

Thomas Minter (1806 to 1845) and Mary Ann Surry

Thomas Minter's marriages from Phillimore's transcription of the Boxted register

Little is known of Thomas Minter. Born in Boxted in 1806 he was the seventh child of another large brood of eight he was the son of farmer Edward Minter and wife Mary Johnson; an agricultural labourer by trade he married Elizabeth Downs on 18th August 1828 whose untimely death in 1830 led to his second marriage two years later to Mary Ann Surry, daughter of a Great Horkesley butcher and they had four children: William Johnson (b 1833), George, Mary Ann (b 1839) and Henry Edward (b 1843).Thomas died aged just 39 in 1845 and his widow remarried on 28th May 1848 to his cousin James yet the marriage certificate gives a warning to researchers: Mary claimed to be single rather than widowed and gives her father as John Surry Minter: was this marriage clandestine or merely an error on behalf of the registrar? Mary had already given birth to a daughter, Roseanna a year after her husband's death and two years before her marriage to James. The couple produced a further two children, John (b 1850) and James. Mary outlived her husband by 46 years before her own death in Boxted aged 78 in 1891.

1841 census entry for the Minter family

Marriage certificate of James Minter and Mary Ann Surrey 1848

1851 census entry for James and Mary Ann Surry

Roseanna Minter, stepsister of William Johnson born 1848

William Johnson Minter (1833 to 1913) and Harriet Dobson

Family tradition holds that 'one of the Minters' lived in Dedham for a time before moving to London. This may relate to William Johnson Minter father of George Henry the pig and poultry dealer and grandfather of the publican. Born in Boxted, Essex in 1833 William was the son of agricultural labourer Thomas Minter and Mary Ann Surry; his father died when he was aged just twelve, with his mother subsequently remarrying his father's own cousin James Minter in nearby Colchester on May 28th 1848. William's three siblings George, Mary and Henry were soon to be complemented by stepbrothers John and James and a stepsister, Roseanna. At least three contemporary documents - the 1901 and 1911 censuses and an 1886 report in the Ipswich Chronicle newspaper enumerate William as 'Johnson Minter' and, as a consequence, this was almost certainly the name he went by in life, in all probability to distinguish himself from the plentiful William Minters in the immediate vicinity. Unsurprisingly, in common with his father given the limited opportunities of advancement he himself became an agricultural labourer in Boxted. He was married Harriett Dobson of Great Horkesley - already seven months pregnant- the daughter of William Dobson and Deborah Wilkins in Boxted on October 2nd 1853.

The size of this couple's offspring was prodigious: thirteen in all over a period of 23 years. Whilst still a very large brood, parents producing this many children at this time is still not exceptional in itself: what remains every bit as astonishing as the size of this family is the fact only one died in childhood when typically the infant mortality rate at this time was around one in three. Apart from Walter, Thomas and Charles who died in their twenties the rest of this brood lived into the next century and, as a consequence, the descendants today of this couple run into their hundreds with all nine of his surviving children marrying. A list of William and Harriet's children and their respective spouses can be found below.

A further sense of incredulity over the family life of William Johnson Minter must be to ask how he managed for so long to eke a living supporting this huge family with the wages of the agricultural labourer being so desperately low and as a consequence some sense of achievement for this man must be merited although once his children were old enough they became self sufficient - either in domestic service, the army or agricultural labouring respectively and were able to contribute to the household expenditure before marrying and raising families of their own. With no compulsory schooling enforced prior to the 1870 Education Act children took to the fields from a very early age, although it appears William's children received at least a basic education given they were able to read and write. Prior to this education was in the hands of local charities and 'dame schools'. A little knowledge in early Victorian society was still seen, as the adage goes, as a dangerous thing. As such around a third of the population at this time were illiterate, in particular in rural areas where literacy was seen as inessential.

1881 census entry for William Johnson Minter

On October 11, 1886 the Ipswich Chronicle recorded an outbreak of swine fever on both William's property and in nearby Great Horkesley: five of his pigs had to be put down to avoid the disease spreading; it serves as a timely reminder that today's topical agricultural epidemics blighted the lives of our forebears in common with our own.

Report from the Ipswich Chronicle, 1886

When the agricultural depression hit rural Essex a number of William's children migrated: Mark, Frederick, Sarah, Albert and Margaret all moved to London and were joined there for a time by George; by 1911 none of the surviving family members were living in their home village. William and Harriet remained in Boxted. Only after Harriet's death in 1898 and the marriage of their final daughter Mary Ann six years later did William relocate, possibly for a time in Dedham; he then resided with his daughter Margaret and son in law Charles Lay Elmer in Lambeth where, despite his advanced age found employment as a mason's labourer.

William died, aged eighty in 1913 in Lambeth; he was survived by eight children who had produced at least fifty grandchildren, and lived to see the births of several great grandchildren, amongst them my grandmother.

Children of William Johnson Minter

Sarah Ann was born in Great Horkesley, the rest in Boxted. The number of children is the number of known children.

1. Sarah Ann (1853 - 1930, Pancras, London), domestic servant, married Charles Norman, 4 children.
2. George Henry (1856 - 1910, Dedham, Essex), dealer, married Ellen Allen, 9 children.
3. William Johnson (1858 - 1945, Colchester, Essex), agricultural labourer, married Esther Elmer, 13 children.
4. Charles Edward (1859 - 1883, Boxted, Essex), agricultural labourer, unmarried.
5. Thomas John (1861 - 1889, Boxted, Essex), soldier, unmarried.
6. Albert (1864 - 1940, Lambeth, London), clerk, married Julia Collins, 4 children.
7. Walter William (1865 - 1888, Boxted, Essex), agricultural labourer, unmarried.
8. Margaret (twin) (1867 - 1939, Camberwell, London), married Charles Lay Elmer, 1 child.
9. Mark (twin) (1867 - 1937, Lewisham, London), married Emily Sewell, 11 children.
10. Nathan (1869 - 1870, Boxted, Essex), died as an infant.
11. Nathan John (1871 - 1945, Romford, Essex), policeman, married Mary Ann Bacon, 1 child.
12. Frederick Arthur (1873 - 1941, Croydon, Surrey), headstone mason, married Alice Barnes, 7 children.
13. Mary Ann (1876 - 1939, Colchester, Essex), married John Ernest Went, no children.

George Henry Minter (1856 to 1910) and Ellen Allen

Whilst the London publican George Henry Minter (1878 - 1948) was no stranger to controversy, the same can also be attributed to some extent to his father and namesake. Coming from a huge family of agricultural labourers documentary sources note he fathered an illegitimate daughter and appeared in court on at least two separate occasions for speeding on a horse and cart and, more seriously, for being drunk and disorderly in his local pub.

Birth certificate of George Henry Minter, 1856

Born in the Essex village of Boxted on January 12th 1856, George Henry Minter was the second of a family comprising of no less than thirteen children. His father, William Johnson Minter (1833-1913) was to spend the vast majority of his life living in this village of around 800 inhabitants. Little is known of his mother, Harriet Dobson (1835-1898) who can but remain a shadowy figure in these pages.

Boxted church

When he married in Boxted church on January 6th 1877 to the twenty two year old Ellen Allen it would appear he was already the father of an illegitimate child, Georgina Clark. Georgina is yet another elusive character who appears in but two documents: firstly the 1881 census when she is noted as being the daughter of George aged four, and born in Great Clacton. Her birth registration is noted for quarter one, 1877, before George's marriage. She disappears after this date and cannot be found on subsequent censuses of 1891 and 1901. The reasons for this could be attributed to a number of factors: for instance she may have died in one of the places George was to set up as home in the future, or she may have emigrated.

Unlike other instances of illegitimacy which have come to light during the course of this research it is almost Ellen was not Georgina's mother; George was enumerated in 1871 as being an agricultural labourer from an early age George, in common with his brother joined the army and served, or at least claimed to have served, for seven years and in all likelihood got a local girl pregnant whilst in the services; possibly the mother died and George was forced to raise Georgina's on his own. The birth of Georgina and George’s marriage in quick succession must remain a mystery.

Ellen Allen, the woman who married George and helped to rear his infant daughter came from a very similar background: born in Ardleigh, Essex and baptised there on June 3rd, 1855 she was the third of six children of William Allen and Rhoda Ward. William was another agricultural labourer who in later life was employed as a cabinet maker after suffering a time out of work due to the depression. Prior to her marriage Ellen was employed in domestic service. The couple commenced their married life in the village of Feering where their children George and Albert were born before moving to Great Tey by 1881; a year later and the family had moved to London where the family grew to include Ellen, Alice and Charles. Little is known of his life in London or, indeed, as to what he was employed during his residence there yet, as is the case with so many of his contemporaries employment itself was in all probability the motivating factor. By 1891 the family were back in Essex, resident in Langham, where a further two children, Bertie And May were born.

In or around 1896 George and his family relocated once more to Dedham, where he set up in business as a general dealer, and later was to diversify into the pig and poultry market in addition to becoming a dairyman and ultimately farmer, and resided at Long Road. As can be seen time and again in these case studies many people were engaged in more than one venture throughout their adult lives, very often concurrently. Grace Minter, the couple's last child was born in Dedham in 1896.

From the Ipswich Chronicle, 1898

It would be relatively simple to look at the facts and to consider George the dedicated family man, setting up his own business providing financial support for his growing band of dependants yet this idyllic view can be readily dismissed in the light of local newspaper reports from the Ipswich Chronicle. On May 18th 1898 he was spotted by a local policeman in the village of Higham, two miles west of Dedham 'driving furiously' in his horse and cart; in other words, for our modern parlance, speeding. At the Stanford petty sessions George denied the offence, claiming his animal was unreliable when it commenced a journey, in his own words stating it was 'very hot in starting' and 'liable to put him in a ditch'. For the defence another witness merely stated George had been 'driving at good pace'. A caution was issued for this comparatively minor misdemeanour but worse was to follow just two years later and can, perhaps, be used to view the man from perspective to the kind of man he really was but, as ever, extreme caution must be used when making sweeping statements on a man who has departed this life these hundred years.

The incident which occurred in Dedham on October 15th, 1900 may - perhaps - be attributed to the disruption of his family life commencing with the marriage of his eldest daughter Ellen to local man Frank Porter after falling pregnant before tying the matrimonial knot and the outset of his eldest son George's career as a steward in regular voyages to the other side of the world which inevitably meant he would see little of his son for the forthcoming five years. For his daughter to have had premarital sex would in all probability angered George with the resultant shame it brought upon his family in the tight knit local community: despite his own actions a quarter of a century before this is still an action he would not likely condone. Yet this is still a hypothesis which may hold little or no grounding in fact. On the day in question George decided to go into his local pub, the Anchor, on an all day drinking binge, on several occasions during the course of the afternoon and was asked to leave after being heard swearing. This particular pub had for some time been witness to a number of public order disturbances and the landlord - one James Downes - had been himself issued with a notice to surrender his license on account of his being able to 'exert proper control over his customers'. George proved to be one such customer: he returned to the Anchor in the evening 'intoxicated' and upon again being asked to leave he refused and remained drinking until closing time, during the course of which it was alleged he referred to the landlord's wife as a 'dishonest woman' and used further bad language and was charged with being drunk and disorderly. For the defence, a Mr Prior, mitigating, used evidence of George's good conduct whilst in the service of the army and that of his position of respectability in the local community: he received a fine of half a crown and Downes' tenancy moved swiftly to a close: with the new year came a new tenant to the Anchor.

From the Ipswich Chronicle, 1900

1901 census for the Minter family

When it is considered October 16th fell on a Monday and George had spent the day drinking when he had a large family and wife to support questions perhaps need to be asked in relation to his integrity yet it is impossible to tell whether this was an isolated incident or a regular occurrence. At the end of his life which was to be cut short by bronchopneumonia and heart failure at the age of 54 it appears to some extent he had achieved some measure of success in his own fortunes. By the time of his death he was running a farm in Dedham, alongside his main business as a pig and poultry dealer; it is, perhaps something of an irony that he lived long enough to see his eldest son set up as a publican in his native village The Compasses and the fact his brother Nathan was a policeman.

Death certificate of George Henry Minter 1910

George died on November 19th, 1910 in Dedham, victim to heart failure and bronchopneumonia: it is to the credit of his widow that the running of his farm and pig and poultry business was passed down to both his wife Ellen and son Charles. Ellen was to survive her husband by more than three decades, living on into the second world war. She died aged 88 in 1943 in Colchester.

Ellen Allen (1855 to 1943)

Children of George Henry and Ellen Minter George Henry (1878, Feering, Essex - 1948, Charlton, London), married Rebecca Steed & Betty Sutherland Mackie, 7 children. Albert William (1879, Feering, Essex - 1924, Essex), unmarried. Ellen Selina (1882, Barking, Essex - 1956, Colchester, Essex), married Frank Edward Porter & Stanley C Pudney, 7 children. Alice Maud (1884, Barking, Essex - 1943, Colchester, Essex), married Thomas Totman, 4 children. Charles Herbert (1888, East Ham, London - 1975, Colchester, Essex), married Mimmie M Johnson, 6 children. Bertie Allen (1891, Langham, Essex - 1968, Colchester, Essex), married Ethel Mary Bird, 4 children. May Ethel (1894, Langham, Essex - 1971, Colchester, Essex), married William Frank H Bourne, 2 children. Grace Lily (1896, Dedham, Essex - 1960, Colchester, Essex), married William Went, 3 children.

1911 census for the Minter family

George Henry Minter (1878 to 1948) and Rebecca Steed

If there is any such thing as the 'family villain' in our family ancestry, then maternal great grandfather George Henry Minter comes close to being its epitome. To my own mother, her grandfather is the 'bad man' whose involvement in illegal gambling at his village pub the Compasses in Dedham, Essex where he was landlord had cost him not only his tenancy but was to force himself, his wife and young family, to move to London in abject disgrace. He was, furthermore the bad man who subjected his long suffering wife to a 'hard life' and he was the bad man who had attempted to bribe her mother against marrying her own father. For other family members he was the man who had alienated a disapproving family circle with his controversial second marriage in later life to an actress. However, it must be noted that as far as can be ascertained no living family member has ever met the errant publican: over sixty years have passed since his death and a large proportion of this information has come down through the family orally and the man is furthermore unable to defend himself.

Carte De Visite photograph almost certainly of George Henry Minter as a young man (c 1900)

1891 census entry for the Minter household at Langham, Essex: note George's father is enumerated as 'Henery' (sic) by which name he may well have been known in life

The first task is one essentially of an evaluation of his life through the investigation of contemporary records to see to just what extent the claims the family have of his notoriety are justified: it is no simple task. What is certain, however, is that almost a hundred years after the doors of the Compasses were closed for the last time George Henry Minter still strikes a sense of revulsion into the hearts of a number of his descendants: are his misdeeds family myth or does more than a grain of truth lie present in their claims?

Birth Certificate of George Henry Minter, 1878

The first concrete fact that can be gleaned about this controversial man is that he was born in the small Essex village of Feering, near Coggeshall on February 1st, 1878, the eldest legitimate offspring of his namesake George Henry Minter, and Ellen Allen. At the time of his birth his father was employed as an agricultural labourer and the third quarter of the nineteenth century was certainly not a fortunate time to be employed in this profession: following the dire harvest of 1873 the whole agricultural community was plunged into a deep depression which was ultimately to last a generation. Prior to this regular local employment had been taken for granted during the mid-victorian age of 'high farming'; during the subsequent depression this was now replaced by irregular seasonal labour, which very often consisted of searching for work through hiring fairs resulting in frequent relocation. Furthermore, steady advances in agricultural machinery had meant less demand for labour in a population growing at a rapid rate aided by a number of factors such as medical advances and the decrease in infant mortality. As such, demand for labour had been steadily moving away from agriculture for some time; the cheap importation of foreign food made possible by rapid developments in transport links served only to exacerbate matters for the farm labourer. Indeed, as early as 1851 it was discovered it was discovered a higher percentage of the population were living in towns than in the country, with the industrial revolution making other avenues of employment open. During the hard times of the late victorian age more people than ever before were moving to the large towns in search of employment in an attempt to better their prospects with more opportunities opening up as the result of the 1870 Education Act enforcing universal schooling to the age of 13 throughout these isles. Prior to the last half of the nineteenth century much of the rural population tended to remain housed in the village they were born or within a few miles radius, for several generations at a time, a prevalent trend within the extended Minter family: the same is true of the Steeds, the family of George's wife and, indeed, the Allens, his mother's family.

George Henry Minter senior - the father - had been born and bred in nearby Boxted in 1856 and was a member of - in today's terms at least - a huge extended family, having no fewer than twelve siblings. Whilst purely conjecture it appears the most likely cause of his relocation to Feering so soon after his marriage was to seek employment when it dried up in Boxted. The Minters were to remain in Feering for no longer than two years after George's birth. After the arrival of a second son, Albert in 1880 the family again moved to the nearby village of Great Tey; subsequently the family were to move on a frequent basis in much the same way the Steeds migratory patterns were to follow a similar path. As the agricultural depression deepened the draw to the metropolis of London was to prove impossible to resist: Ellen Minter was born in Barking in 1882, followed by Alice two years later. By the time Charles was born in 1888, the family were living in East Ham before returning to rural Essex, in the villages of Langham and Dedham where the family's fortunes were to take an upwardly mobile turn. In all probability this frequent migration would have proved a substantial disruption to the life and schooling of the young George: before reaching adolescence he had lived in no less than five different locations; it may well have been more.

The young George Henry Minter did not commence his working life in the most propitious manner, beginning his career at the tender age of just 13 following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather before him as an agricultural labourer in the fields outside Langham. By 1897 his father had successfully set up business on his own as first a general, then pig and poultry dealer in Dedham which he combined with the role of dairyman. At this address at Long Road he remained for the duration of his life. However, by the turn of the new century George the son had himself obtained employment with the Peninsular and Oriental (P&O) steamship service as a steward on passenger steamships conveying emigrants to a new life in Australia. He is found on the lists of five voyages to Sydney which took on average around three months. He is first enumerated on board the Australia which reached Sydney on 22 March 1901, and is back there on 19 September that year on the China which accounts for his absence on the 1901 census in England.

The P & O passenger steamship Oceana

In February 1903 George is again at Sydney aboard the Oceana, considered one of the more luxurious vessels of its time, measuring 141 metres in length with a capacity of 400 passengers; it was aboard this ship that the Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi sailed upon to his homeland from London in 1891. Yet the Oceana was destined to end its life in dire circumstances indeed: on 16 March 1912 whilst sailing off the coast of Eastbourne it was accidently ran into by a German boat and sunk; one of the lifeboats capsized killing nine passengers and this tragedy took place a month to the day before the most famous shipwreck of all time, that of the HMS Titanic. Another of George's ships, the Australia also met an ignominious end, running aground off Port Philip near Melbourne, demonstrating that shipping at this time was far from being the relatively safe venture it is considered today.

George's final two known voyages were aboard the China, arriving in Sydney on November 11 1904 and, on March 16 1905, upon his return to England he married local girl Rebecca Steed and opted for a change of profession. What exactly his role on these steamships was is, as ever, elusive. Steward is a broad occupational term but one, nevertheless, which may have encompassed the role of bar steward. It was as a publican George traded for the rest of his life. After his marriage on October 5 at St Mary's church, Dedham the couple subsequently moved to Offton, just over the Suffolk border where he set about the business of both becoming the landlord of The Greyhound and beginning to raise a family. George had not the benefit of hindsight to realise he was but six years from making a decision that was to ultimately end in his disgrace.

Rebecca Steed

Birth certificate of Rebecca Steed, 1880

Born in the Suffolk village of Aldham on May 27, 1880 Rebecca Steed was the eldest child of agricultural labourer William Steed and his second wife Gertrude Mary Rolfe; in common with George her formative years had been spent relocating on a regular basis, again due in all probability to the agricultural depression: before settling in Dedham in the late 1880s the family had made both Aldham, Hadleigh and Layham their home. By her marriage in 1905 Rebecca's family had moved yet again to the village of Langham; with wages of the typical agricultural labourer being pitiful in this age - typically £1 per week (around £60 in today's terms) - Rebecca's mother ran a laundry business from home in order to supplement the family's income, with both Rebecca and step sister Laura assisting in this enterprise. In common with George, Rebecca was part of a large family - her parents produced another seven children, many of whom died young, and her two brothers William and Arthur were army men stationed at barracks by the turn of the century, the former having obtained the rank of bombardier by the age of 20. Fate was to dictate Rebecca was destined to play the role of publican's wife through thick and thin lacking any insight into the problems which awaited her new family as the country moved into the modern age.

Rebecca Steed (1880 to 1933)

Marriage certificate of George Henry Minter and Rebecca Steed, 1905

When the jingle of wedding bells had faded into the mists of time the newly married couple's first child Dorothy Helen, subsequently known in family circles as 'Dolly' duly arrived on November 6, 1906.

Birth certificate of Dorothy Helen Minter, 1906

The family continued to grow on a regular basis; a son, George William was born on 21 June 1908, and a second daughter, Ella Mildred - my grandmother - on May 11 1910. By the time of Ella' s birth the family had moved to Dedham where George had become licensee for the Three Compasses public house.

The Compasses, a Cobbold pub, was the oldest in Dedham, dating from the 16th century and in 1965 attained the status of a grade II listed building by National Heritage and had been trading as a pub since at least the eighteenth century and had been privy to a somewhat chequered past: during the early years of the nineteenth century this had been a venue on occasion for vestry meetings, the forerunner to today's village council, and it was here that in the 1830s a Mr Tollis, a baker, unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide. In 1855 two London forgers were discovered hiding out here by the authorities with 'loaded pistols by their side.' When the Compasses final landlord commenced his tenancy the building itself was no stranger to notoriety. Dedham was a substantial village with a population of around 2500 at this time and it can be immediately ascertained George was faced with some degree of competition for business: the Anchor (where his father had faced a drunk and disorderly charge by local magistrates in 1900), The Gun, The Lamb, The Marlborough Head, the Prince of Wales, Sun and Rose and Crown all traded in the village during George's tenure. His pub was not alone in being the only source of social recreation he was involved in for in 1910 Dedham football club, after an eleven year hiatus was reformed; from the archives of the club survives the first team photograph of their first season - standing in the back row to the far left, dressed in full kit and period moustache is none other than George Henry Minter himself. Dedham football club 1910-11 season. George stands back row, far left

The Compasses, Dedham today

Yet for all the apparent success of George in raising a young family and bettering himself from the drudgery and toil on the land on November 11 1910 his father died of bronchopneumonia and heart failure in Dedham leaving his widow and unmarried children to effectively fend for themselves in an age where self sufficiency was essential to avoid the degradation and stigma of the dreaded workhouse. His eldest son, for his part, it would appear at this time decided to immerse himself into the seedy world of illegal gambling in the cellar of his own pub if family sources can be taken at face value. He was soon to fall foul of the local authorities, raided and caught red handed and suffered the ignominy of surrendering his licence. Yet first the question must be posed: does any documentary evidence exist for this assertion?

In fact there are three sources, although none name the reason for the shutting down of the Compasses in 1911 or mention George by name: both the Victoria County History of Essex and Dedham, Flatford and East Bergholt: A pictorial history (Yearsley, Ian Phillmore, 1996) note the Compasses was 'closed down' and 'lost its license' in 1911 or 1912 respectively; a footnote to the former publication gives its source as a publication entitled Dedham Described. This local book, alas, was originally published by a local clergyman in 1934 and is now out of print. Without the conclusive proof, however tempting it is to find George guilty as charged with all the circumstantial evidence pointing that way, until the contempory newspaper is discovered detailing these events the jury must remain out. As it stands George has other charges laid against him for which he stands in the dock to this very day. What can be added to this mystery, however, is the very real knowledge gambling was seen as a real problem by the local police at this time: in the same year a pub in nearby Colchester was raided and closed for 'unlicensed gambling' and another, this time in Dedham itself, mysteriously had its 'license surrendered' to the authorities at the the same time as the Compasses.

1910 Post Office Directory for Essex listing The Compasses

Note on The Compasses from the publication Dedham, Flatford & East Bergholt: A pictorial history

What now for the beleaguered George? The Compasses was never again to open its doors to the drinking public again and today trades as a bookshop under its former name. For George, if the 'raid' story is true, to get a new license in the local community would have not been as much slim as anorexic, the area being almost certainly awash with news of the disgraced landlord and as a consequence he would have had little option but to opt for a new start and the place he decided best to accomplish this was in the capital, London; it was to his benefit that both he and wife Rebecca had family there. Paradoxically for George his uncle, Nathan was a policeman; the move for George and his new family would have proved a traumatic one and his future at best would have appeared uncertain.

Yet within the space of a year the family reappear at the Swan public house located at 22 The Village, Charlton: the Minter's fourth child, Percy Harold (known as Peter) was born there on June 12, 1912.

The Minter family from the 1911 census

Birth certificate of Percy Harold Minter, 1912

The Swan as it appears today

Transgressions aside, George retained the tenancy of the Swan for over 35 years. Charlton Village, the road on which the pub stands was, and indeed still is, the equivalent of Charlton's high street; the road is known as 'the village' due to the fact the area remained, as in some respects it does today, the aura of the timelessness of a village long after its incorporation into the metropolis that is London. The Swan itself is known today as a locals drinking establishment along with the other local public houses in its immediate vicinity; it was built in 1887 and trades to this day. When up for sale in 2006 the breweries description informs the reader that it comprises 'two large trading areas with a centre servery' with 'many original features including stained glass windows'. There are large living rooms and kitchen, a large garden under a 'huge willow tree', an outbuilding/store off the garden, a large bedroom upstairs and 'ex clubroom', a managers flat comprising of a living room, bedroom, office, store room, bathroom and other room. Later in life George's daughter Ella described the building comprising of three floors and is known to have been trading as a hotel from at least the time of the Second World War. George, by hook or by crook had clearly moved up in the world.Within three years of the Minters move from Dedham the First World War broke out. Whether George himself participated in the war to end all wars is unknown yet unlikely; suffice to say throughout the course of the war he and Rebecca produced three more children - Leslie (b 1914), Cyril Stanley (b March 29 1915), and their final child of seven Ronald Arthur (b August 22 1918). The war would have caused great disruption into the families lives: Lloyd George's government introduced stringent new licensing legislation in the name of promoting the war effort restricting trading hours whilst, alarmingly, whilst the bombing of London is primarily associated with the second world war, it did take place to a lesser extent during the first: German zeppelin raids came unnervingly close for the Minters when the nearby Woolwich arsenal was bombed; whilst with hindsight it can be ascertained such raids were primarily aimed at military targets, the sounds of nearby explosions would have done little to reassure contemporary Londoners - such as George and Rebecca - of this fact.

Yet the Minters were here this time to stay: it was at the Swan that grandmother and her siblings spent their childhoods. It was at the Swan where George witnessed when the time came his children fly one by one out of the family nest. And it was at the Swan where George was ultimately to die. This was, as yet, however many years off and it was Rebecca who was the first to depart this life. Her death took place on August 3rd, 1933 at the premature age of 53 as a result of degeneration of the heart at Greenwich hospital.

Death certificate of Rebecca Steed, 1933

Her death was, it has been said, due partly to the 'hard life' she had endured; however her immediate family had a history of heart complaints: both her brother Arthur and mother had died as a result. George was to find himself increasingly isolated in the following years: daughter Dolly now a librarian in Blackheath was living with her civil servant husband , Ted Jesty, whom she had married in 1930. Eldest son George had entered the navy at the tender age of fifteen and had taken an accelerated advancement course and was to become chief petty officer serving on several destroyers in the second world war and married Amy Vine in 1933; Peter married Vera Jarrett the following year whilst Leslie was destined to emigrate to Australia. George found himself practically alone, an ageing widower in his London pub. Family tradition again relates that when his younger daughter Ella came to announce her intention to marry local James Joseph Dunn Powell in 1934 George, by now a comparatively wealthy man, attempted to bribe her to break off her engagement to stay with him at the Swan: she indignantly refused. Even now George was far from flirting with controversy. He announced a bombshell to an incredulous family shortly after the outbreak of the second world war by announcing his own second marriage to actress Betty Sutherland Mackie. Whilst on paper his children could have had no objection to his marrying again it was his choice of bride they objected to and, according to his granddaughter Diane, the family 'did not take to her from the start'. It is not altogether difficult to explain the objections to this marriage: she was twenty years old, compared to George at sixty two. Betty had been born in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria in 1920 and was the daughter of a master mariner.

Marriage certificate of George Henry Minter and Betty Sutherland Mackie, 1940

1937 telephone directory for London

Family reservations aside the couple were married on August 10th 1940 at Greenwich registry office yet despite the controversial marriage George and his young wife were faced with more immediate fears than that of family disapproval. A mere six days after their marriage had taken place saw their very own metaphysical bombshell replaced by the real thing: the first major German Luftwaffe air raid on London took place on September 7th and subsequently almost nightly bombing raids, known popularly as the blitz began to blight the Minters lives as people began evacuating from the capital in fear of their safety and, indeed, their very lives. The nightly wail of the air raid siren very soon became a feature of the couples lives for the next five years.

Yet in the face of adversity the popularity of the London pub was not to be undermined during the war years; the conflict was to take a hefty toll in the vicinity of the Swan with as much as 10% of the housing in the boroughs of Greenwich and Woolwich were destroyed by enemy bombing. By 1944, as a contemporary directory shows, the Swan was by now trading not only as a public house but as a hotel.

Whatever the faults of the shamed hotelier to have stayed in London during the war, which he almost certainly did, with nightly bombing raids would have required courage and resolution. It was this downright grit and determination on the part of the Londoners as a whole that ensured victory, when it finally came, was ensured in 1945. George celebrated his seventieth birthday in 1948 but was already an ill man: suffering from bronchitis, high blood pressure and a urinary infection he suffered a brain haemorrhage and died on December 1st. His young widowed wife married the hotel's barman, Arthur Wilson the following year and moved to Sussex. George Henry Minter takes many questions with him to the grave. It is highly unlikely now that they will ever be answered.

Death certificate of George Henry Minter, 1948

The rain poured down relentlessly when I visited the White Swan in 2006 but was well worth the visit: its sale catalogue had been correct in every respect down to the elderly 'resigned looking locals' described by the website Beer in the evening whom one feels could have been drinking here as long as George's tenancy. And how these regulars must have seen Charlton change in the intervening years. Yet perhaps Charlton has not changed that much at all in reality: almost, just almost, whilst trying to capture the aura of a bygone age, imagining the noise of horse and carts trundling past the property in their daily pursuits the presence of George and Rebecca serving behind that bar could perhaps, still be sensed.

The children of George Henry and Rebecca Minter

1942 wedding of Cyril Stanley Minter and Doris Baldwin

Ella Mildred Minter (1910 to 1977) and James Joseph Dunn Powell

Maternal grandparents James Joseph Dunn Powell (1910-62) and Ella Mildred Minter (1910-1977) lived through the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century: the two world wars and the depression. Whilst James did not see active service in World War II he and his wife were to live in the most heavily bombed area per square acre in Britain with their young family. Whilst their house survived intact many of their neighbours were not as fortunate; by recounting their tale it is easy today to forget relaxing in our twenty first century chairs with our colour televisions, mobile phones and laptops the personal bravery and stoicism of this generation and who were forced to make such enormous personal sacrifices in order to assist the war effort. Neither James nor Ella were born in Dartford: both had grown up in London within a couple of miles of each other. James was born a twin at 12.20 am on January 13th 1910 at his parents' home, 27 Trinity Street, Woolwich, the youngest of five children. He was the son of James Henry Powell and his wife of eleven years Rebecca Nicks Dunn. James Henry Powell an employee of the bourgeoning Siemens telegraph factory (which today is one of the world's largest engineering firms) who had commenced his career first as labourer and electrical installer. Trinity Street in Woolwich was far from being an idyllic place to live. In 1900 the social commentator Charles Booth had visited it with local policeman PC William Clyne and commented in his notebooks which formed the basis for his research in his primary work Life and labour of the people in London that Trinity Street itself was home to 'birdcages and loafers' although conceded that 'half skilled telegraph workers and construction workers' were also present in the locality. He continued: 'there is something dismal about the low lying streets north of the Woolwich road..if trouble is to come out of the east in times of unemployment, it is from these streets'. Fortunately for James's father by 1911 he was promoted to the clerical role of telegraph messenger and subsequently became a clerk. The family had a tradition of naming their children after their forebears: the original Joseph Dunn and Rebecca Nicks, James's mother's grandparents had been married in Warwick in 1842 and were derived from an industrious family. Little if anything, however, has come down through family sources of James early life in Woolwich: he spoke in later life not one word to his children regarding his upbringing. Whilst not necessarily the case - many people of this era appear to have declined to relate to their descendants details of their formative years - this may, perhaps, be attributed to not one but a number of skeletons in his family closet: when James was still in the second year of this life the census enumerators of 1911 found his paternal grandfather - another James - incarcerated for an undisclosed offence in Wandsworth prison with his grandmother Selina living with his grandfather's co-worker George Gurden whilst still married: at the turn of the last century this behaviour would have seen her treated as essentially a social pariah. Yet until the 1930s and the introduction of legal aid divorce was only accessible to the wealthiest members of society.

Ella Mildred Minter as a young woman

James Joseph Dunn Powell as a young man

At the age of four the great war broke out and a matter of weeks later news came to James's father that his brother John, a sergeant in the British Expeditionary Force had been killed in action in France at the battle of Neuve Chapell after one of the trenches his battalion were stationed in was blown to pieces by German fire. For the next four years the war raged and it would be difficult to conceive that James had anything other than a traumatic early childhood.

Within a year of his birth the family had relocated to 622 Woolwich road, Charlton and in close proximity to his future wife Ella's residence. A piece of conjecture around their first meeting may lie in the fact that James cousin Julia Thrale nee Barker was working as a barmaid around this area at the time of her marriage in 1920; it remains a possibility that she worked at Ella's father's pub - the White Swan - for a time, and James may have at some time visited her: however, James came from a Methodist family whose doctrines promoted an abstinence to alcohol on a par with the temperance movement. James was no exception - oral history informs us that both James and Ella did not drink: Ella's abstinence stemmed from a number of ugly scenes witnessed at her father's pub whilst she was growing up: at Christmas they had sherry and port when the extended family came to stay but, according to his children, 'that was the only time they ever drank'.

Studio photograph of Ella Mildred Minter

Birth certificate of Ella Mildred Minter, 1910

Ella Mildred Minter was born in rural Essex, only a few miles distant of the setting for the artist John Constable's The Haywain in Dedham, on May 11, 1910. The third of seven children of George Henry Minter and Rebecca Steed, she was herself to face every bit traumatic time for a young child as her future husband after her father was allegedly apprehended by the police after using the basement of their village pub, the Compasses as a den of unlicensed gambling. The family were forced at a stroke to move to London to set up business again, this time at the White Swan, Charlton where her father retained the tenancy for the rest of his life. This was closely followed by the outbreak of the First World War.

Ella Mildred Minter as a girl guide

As a child holidays were spent at her maternal grandparents William and Gertrude Steed at Pound Farm in Dedham; Ella became a member of the girl guides and was also a keen gymnast yet from family recollections it does not appear either she or her husband - at least after their marriage - were much of social animals. She commenced her working life as a shorthand typist but all this was to change when she married James at Charlton Methodist church on October 6th 1934. James took what today would be considered the archaic view that the head of the household was the sole breadwinner and provider for his family; this, however, for the time, was a view shared by a large proportion of their generation. Working wives were the exception rather than the rule. Subsequent to their marriage the couple soon after relocated to Dartford, Kent where they mortgaged a house at 20 Gainsborough Avenue, and James found employment as toolmakers Inspector at J & E Halls of the town, a long established engineering company: founded in 1785 the company was the innovator in the production of refrigerators during the nineteenth century and by the early twentieth Halls were supplying these to most the London hospitals.

James and Ella on their wedding day, 1934

Marriage certificate of James Joseph Dunn Powell and Ella Mildred Minter, 1934

Progressively this family run business diversified into the manufacture of lifts and escalators, in which James was primarily involved. It was Halls escalators which were to find their way into both Harrods and Selfridges in due course and the company thrived until the beginning of the twenty first century.

James and Ella soon settled into their new domestic life: with a house and job secured in Dartford already assured the couple set about raising a family, commencing on June 7, 1936 with the birth of their first child, a son, Keith James. Yet within the course of a few years the day to day life of the family along with so many of their contemporaries was to be changed forever.

Whilst the Powells were not - like their fathers - resident in London during the course of the Second World War, when it came in 1939 they could hardly have found a less propitious location to live. It was over Dartford where the Luftwaffe came on nightly bombing raids to London, and it was over Dartford where they dropped their bombs if their passage to London was intercepted before returning to their homeland and as such was the most heavily bombed area per square acre in the country: the sheer scale of the bombing today is difficult to comprehend: during the course of the war almost 6000 high explosive bombs were dropped, together with 23 land mines, 73 phosphorous bombs and 200 oil bombs not to mention a staggering 2 million incendiary bombs. 150 civilians of the town lost their lives as a result of these sustained bombing raids, a figure which could have been much, much worse given the intensity of the bombing and damage inflicted. These air raid sirens sounded over Dartford for the first time in Dartford on August 25, 1940 and over the successive 90 nights the residents of the town were bombed on no less than 69 occasions: the worst of these occurred on September 5th 1940 when one of the female wards of the West Hill hospital was subjected to a high explosive bomb killing a nurse and twenty four patients: it was in this very same hospital that James and Ella's second child, Pamela Mary, was born on February 25 1944 during the height of the VI Doodlebug bombing campaign by the Germans on the capital, many of which fell short of their targets and landed in Dartford. Pamela was destined, almost thirty years hence, to become my mother.

The bombing continued: a further twelve people were killed in Carrington road by a flying bomb attack, with the worst single act of destruction occurring in Kent Road, near the city centre in April 1941 when a bombing raid damaged 150 houses and the town's Scala cinema, killing a further thirteen civilians. Due to the fortitude of its citizens as a whole the Second World War has been designated by posterity 'Dartford's finest hour'.

20 Gainsborough Avenue, Dartford

Not only did the populace of Dartford endure these nightly air raids but were forced to make many personal sacrifices, and as a whole were to offer a valuable contribution to the war effort: the employees of grandfathers own firm, J & E Hall contributed enough to purchase an anti aircraft gun for their own premises which was disguised from the air to avert German attacks; other streets gave what little they could to finance ammunition, with many household donating aluminium for recycling into aircraft; others donated clothes to the newly opened second hand shops which acted as charity outlets for the victims of bombing.Add to this the rationing introduced and the uncertainty of the outcome of the war without the benefit of hindsight these were grim times indeed. Sixty years after the end of the war a resident of Dartford, an E Garrett was interviewed for a feature on the town and related how, during rationing, 'some people used to keep chickens to get a few eggs'. The Powells were no exception.

Many of the younger residents of Dartford were evacuated to the countryside in these turbulent times, but the Powell children were not among them; they owned a brick air raid shelter which would have been used on a frequent basis which after the war was converted into a rockery, adorned with flowers. Indeed, horticulture was a hobby close to James's heart: he served as secretary to his works horticultural society and arranged the local flower and vegetable shows. He cultivated roses and chrysanthemums in his garden which went down to the allotment where he grew vegetables and fruit bushes. A keen craftsman, James also made toys for his children, including a rocking horse and a brass hoop for daughter Pamela's ballet lessons. An avid photographer, many of his snapshots of family life still survive.

The couples' family was completed with the birth of their daughter Angela Beryl in 1947 and the young children accompanied their father to Charlton on Sunday afternoons for 'high tea' to visit James' father. It was a journey the young Pamela would need to accustomise herself to as one day she find herself working in the heart of the capital.

In 1954 the family purchased their first television set and for their summer holiday travelled to the Isle of Wight to visit James Aunt Eleanor Hussey: her son - James's first cousin - was a classically trained actor and friend of Kenneth Williams who had been affiliated to the Royal Shakespeare Company. Later in his career he was to appear in both television shows such as Z cars and The Avengers and in a number of films, playing an architect in one of the most famous British productions Get Carter. With their television set the Powells could watch his appearances, a fact testified to by his daughters.

In 1959 Pamela enrolled at Gravesend arts college to study for A levels in Art, Design and Dressmaking and began a career in London commencing at Bijon's fashions and subsequently Jane and Jane, the fashion designer Jean Muir's outlet in Oxford Street, who was involved in designing the costumes for the cast of The Avengers with Pamela on one occasion conducting a private fitting for one of its stars Diana Rigg. She left Jane and Jane to marry David Roy Bedingfield and moved to rural Cambridgeshire.

James and Ella remained in Dartford: when James died suddenly of a heart attack in February 1962 Ella was finally able to return to clerical duties at Vickers in the town after 28 years as a housewife, a post she retained until her retirement eight years years later.

Ella in 1963

Keith James Powell

Pamela Mary Powell

Angela Beryl Powell