Our Family Roots

We do hope that you will enjoy your visit to this section of our website, here we hope to give you a little bit of history into some of the Surnames in our family, we also hope to give you an insight of some of the conditions that were commonplace in their occupations. We have added some great pictures that are relevant to the subject, we are sure that you will find something of interest here.

Please don’t forget to visit our Genealogy Pages, where you can see how we are getting on in our research.

We really thank you for visiting our site, now just sit back and enjoy your trip back in time.

First found in Northampton, where they held a family seat from ancient times, and the first on record was Osbert de Varde of Givendale in the year 1130, who was a descendant of Fouques de Vardes of Normandy.

The Majority of our Ward family came from the Midlands area of England, Smethwick, Birmingham, Kings Norton, etc.

First found in Cambridgeshire where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.

'Dweller, or worker in the forest'. They moved to Ramsbottom in the early 1900's, then to Summerseat, which is a village next to Ramsbottom, Lancashire. UK. Although there are still some connections in St.Helens.

The Forrest surname on my wife’s side came from St. Helens, Lancashire in the 1800's.

The Viking settlements in the 9th century on the northern Isles of Scotland injected a fiercely aggressive ethnic group into Scottish society. Despite many attempts to repel these intruders, Scottish Kings finally came to accept them as part of the society.

It was from this Viking group that the family name Hutchinson emerges.
In researching the origin of this surname Hutchinson the historians probed such documents as the Viking Sagas, the Orkneyinga Sagas, the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, the Inquisitio and translations of local manuscripts, parish records, baptismals, and tax records, found in the north of Dingwall, and in the Orkneys and Shetlands.
The first record of the name Hutchinson was found in Northumberland where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.

First found in Lancashire where they were seated from very early times. It is thought that the ancestors of the bearers of LOMAX predated Duke William of Normandy and the Battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D.

Now if you visit our Geography Page when you finish here, you will see a map of the UK showing the locations that our ancestors came from, and we have given a brief history of the towns associated with our ancestors.

Don't forget to visit our 'RULERS of ENGLAND & GREAT BRITAIN' where you can view a Full List Covering from 802 up to Present time, including Dates of Reign, Saxons and Danes.

We feel this may be of interest to you, as you will be able to see who was in reign during your ancestors time.

As many of our ancestors worked in the cotton mills in Lancashire, here is a little bit of history on the cotton trade and cotton mills in Lancashire

Records show that by 1830 there were over 560 cotton mills in Lancashire, employing more than 110,000 workers, of which 35,000 were children - some as young as six years of age. Wages for children were about 2s.3d. (Two shillings and three pence) per week (about 11½ new pence), but adults were paid about 10 times more. Hence, it made economic sense to employ as many children and as few adults as possible, and this is exactly what happened. Youngest children were employed to crawl beneath machinery (while still in operation) to gather up loose cotton - they were known as "scavengers" and many died by getting caught up in machinery. Those that survived to adulthood had permanent stoops or were crippled from the prolonged crouching that the job entailed. The typical working day was 14 hours long, but many were much longer, as, without regulation, unscrupulous mill owners could demand any terms they liked.

Wages in Lancashire in 1830
Age of Worker	Male Wages	Female Wages
Under 11	2s 3d.	2s 4d
11 - 16	4s 1d.	4s 3d
17 - 21	10s 2d.	7s 3d
22 - 26	17s 2d	8s 5d
27 - 31	20s 4d	8s 7d
32 - 36	22s 8d	8s 9d
37 - 41	21s 7d	9s 8d
42 - 46	20s 3d	9s 3d
47 - 51	16s 7d	8s 10d
52 - 56	16s 4d	8s 4d
57 - 61	13s 6d	6s 4d

The above wages are in £ - s - d. For reference, 20s is £1 in today’s currency.

In 1738, Mr. John Kay, a native of Bury, in Lancashire, then residing at Colchester, where the woolen manufacture was at that time carried on, suggested a mode of throwing the shuttle, which enabled the weaver to make nearly twice as much cloth as he could make before. The old mode was, to throw the shuttle with the hand, which required a constant extension of the hands to each side of the warp. By the new plan, the lathe (in which the shuttle runs) was lengthened a foot at either end; and, by means of two strings attached to the opposite ends of the lathe, and both held by a peg in the weaver's hand, he, with a slight and sudden pluck, was able to give the proper impulse to the shuttle. The shuttle thus impelled was called the flying-shuttle, and the peg called the picking-peg (i.e. the throwing peg). This simple contrivance was a great saving of time and exertion to the weaver, and enabled one man to weave the widest cloth, which had before required two persons.

John Kay brought this ingenious invention to his native town, and introduced it among the woollen weavers, in the same year, but it was not much used among the cotton weavers until 1760. In that year Robert Kay, of Bury, son of John Kay, invented the drop-box, by means of which the weaver can at pleasure use any of three shuttles, each containing a different coloured weft, without the trouble of taking them from and replacing them in the lathe.

During our research we found that one of our ancestors, a John Bird who was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, UK in 1811, on searching the 1881 Census we found that John was in fact in the "Coventry Poor Law Union Workhouse" and his occupation was a Watch Finisher, so after finding this out, I thought you may like to know a bit more about the Work House, conditions etc.

This section will give you an insight as to how the people lived in those years gone by.

People ended-up in the workhouse for a variety of reasons. Usually, it was because they were too poor, old or ill to support themselves. This may have resulted from things such lack of work during periods of high unemployment, or someone having no family willing or able to provide care for them when they became elderly or sick. Their families often disowned unmarried pregnant women, and the workhouse was the only place they could go during and after the birth of their child.

Prior to the establishment of public mental asylums in the mid-nineteenth century (and sometimes even after that), the mentally ill and mentally handicapped poor were often consigned to the workhouse. Workhouses, though, were never prisons, and entry into them was generally a voluntary although often painful decision.

Upon entering the workhouse, paupers were stripped, bathed, and issued with a workhouse uniform. Their own clothes would be washed and disinfected and then put into store along with any other possessions they had and only returned to them when they left the workhouse.

The daily routine for inmates proposed by the Poor Law Commissioners was as follows:

The ringing of the workhouse bell announced meal breaks during which the rules required that "silence, order and decorum shall be maintained". Inmates were given a variety of work to perform, much of which was involved in running the workhouse. The women mostly did domestic jobs such as cleaning, or helping in the kitchen or laundry. Some workhouses had workshops for sewing, spinning and weaving or other local trades. Others had their own vegetable gardens where the inmates worked to provide food for the workhouse.

Stone breaking was a task often given to male inmates. It was physically demanding, the amount performed could be readily measured, and the results could be sold for road mending.

Many inmates were to become long-term residents of the workhouse. A Parliamentary report of 1861 found that, nation-wide, over 20 percent of inmates had been in the workhouse for more than five years. These were mostly consisted of elderly, chronically sick, and mentally ill paupers.

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From 1753 the age of consent to marry was 21, without parental permission.
Girls aged 12 and boys aged 14 had to have parental consent to marry.
In 1929 the parental consent age was raised to 16 for both girls & boys.
In 1969 the age of consent to marry without parental permission was lowered to 18, which is still the law today.

We found that many of our relatives were working in the Watch Making industry around Coventry, and also Ribbon Weaving, as well as coal mining and working in the Cotton Mills. Our family names such as – Bird and Malin were Watch Makers and Watch Finishers, we also know that some of them lived in the Spon Street area.

I have at this point decided to give you a little bit of information about the Watchmakers and Ribbon Weavers in this up-date, please visit again in the coming months as we are sure that you will find many of our articles interesting.

Spon End is the oldest surviving residential area of Coventry as much of old Coventry is now the commercial centre or under the University. The first documented mention of the area was in the 12th century when it was known as 'Sponn' or 'Spanne' a wooded approach to the west of the city. It had all the elements of an independent community at this early date, being referred to as a 'vill' with its own common, fields, wood, mill and waste. Spon Common lay to the north of Spon Street, and 'Spon field' to the south. At this time many dyers and tanners plied their trades outside the city wall because of the noxious nature of their work. The existence of the River Sherbourne made Spon End an ideal situation.

The 14th Century Chapel of St.James and St.Christopher (1395) stood by a ford close to the site of the present Spon End Bridge. It was a wayfaring chapel used by travellers for devotions before entering the city. In the 15th century the chapel was dedicated to St.Christopher and St.Julian, saints associated with ferrymen and travellers. The building became a house and was occupied continually until 1936 when the Council proposed it be restored. It suffered minor bomb damage in 1941 and was eventually dismantled by the Council and left as a ruin in 1952.

In 1812 Spon Street was one of six Coventry streets that were Turnpiked (improved and converted to toll roads). It was the main highway to Shrewsbury and Chester, important centres at the time. The pressure on Spon Street was relieved by the construction of Holyhead Road between 1827-30. Telford designed the Holyhead Road to run in a straight line between the Plough Inn in Spon Street and the Rainbow Inn in Allesley. For many years a tollbooth stood at the junction of Holyhead Road and Barras Lane.

Ironically after the war in the 1950's and 60's the area saw extensive destruction and redevelopment. Virtually all of the medieval and Victorian buildings to the south of Spon Street were demolished and replaced by modern flats. A small portion of Spon End within the ring road was preserved and restored. The larger part of Spon End outside the ring road was left cut off from the city centre to fall into economic decline.

By 1821 there were 5,000 ribbon weavers in Coventry out of a population of 21,000. By 1841 there were 30,000 weavers in Coventry working on 3,500 plain and 2228 Jacquard looms. This influx of weavers caused major housing problems because of the wall that surrounded the city and because the weavers, who were freemen, had no rights over the ring of common land surrounding the city walls.

The rows of weavers' houses with their large top shop windows were one of the most characteristic features of the Coventry scene prior to the drastic clearances after the second World War. These ribbon weavers worked at home and owned their own looms. Typical houses of this type in Holyhead Road close to the Spon Street Townscape Scheme are still in good condition. The group an a whole form a triangle of 19th century properties but a number of them are considered in too advanced a state of disrepair to be considered for retention. By 1860 the industry had collapsed because of cheap imports. Many of the weavers emigrated to the colonies.

There were a few clockmakers working in Coventry prior to the 1750's. It is known that Coventry, due in part to its geographical location, had for a long time been sited at a cross-roads where goods were manufactured, exchanged and dispatched to all parts of the country.

Although watchmaking in Coventry enjoyed a peak period from about 1850 - 1890, cheaper watches from America and Switzerland began to appear. The American factory-made watches were produced using jigs and gauges, with the result that parts were interchangeable. They also used a standard design, adding extra refinements to a basic model to give a series of watches of varying quality. The methods they used cut production costs considerably and also assisted after-sales service.

The suburb of Chapel Fields consisted of watchmakers’ houses. Most of the master’s houses faced Allesley Old Road. These were middle class terraced dwellings with bay windows, three bedrooms on the first floor and servant’s rooms in the attics. The workshops were in two storied wings built out into the back gardens increasing in length as trade prospered. Duke Street, Lord Street and Mount Street contained smaller watchmakers houses, each having a front and back room on the ground floor and two bedrooms. It was two storied at the front but a shallower roof pitch gave room for an extra storey at the rear.

In 1887 the Coventry Technical Institute in Earl Street offered courses in horology under local watchmakers such as Player, Rotherham, Bonniksen and Fridlander. These courses included history, theory, geometry and technical drawing in addition to the usual practical work. This was an attempt to provide a broader based training compared with the old apprenticeship system, so that watches could be designed on the drawing board instead of being made individually thus solving the problems of manufacture as work progressed.

Rotherhams were already established on machine lines, but still used a considerable amount of hand fitting and finishing. This was time consuming and therefore expensive. In 1880 they felt the need to purchase machinery from America in order to become more competitive. Other factory units emerged in the city as watchmakers banded together fighting to survive against the flood of cheaper watches from Europe and America.

Many of our ancestors were coal miners, the following few paragraphs will give you an insight of the conditions that they had to endure, and there are also a few quotes from some of the people that worked in the terrible conditions.

Women and children were employed in mines during the 19th century. By the late 19th century, the younger children no longer went into the mines, but were employed as breaker boys. Their job was to pull out slate and rocks that were mixed in with the coal. The small hands of the children were considered more effective for this than the large hands of adults. It was grueling work and easy to injure hands with the rocks and coal moving by. They would stoop over the chute where the coal passes and with their nibble fingers they would pick out the impurities. In breakers were water was not used to wash the coal, the air was laden with coal dust, and in winter their little fingers would get cold and chapped, and at all times when the machinery was in motion the noise from revolving wheels, crushers, screens and the rushing coal was deafening. This made for a terrible environment for children to be in, much less to have to work in. And likely as not a supervisor with a cane would strike the boys deemed not to be working hard enough.
They also usually went uneducated, because of the long hours at the coalmines; there was no time for school. So the chain was rarely ever broken, child follows the father in this work for generation after generation, and kept most families in poverty. There were no other opportunities for them, except for the hard, drab and extremely dangerous work of the coal mines.
But despite these barriers, a number of boys who began life under these conditions were able to rise to prominence in the various spheres of life.
After a time improved machinery for cleaning coal began to replace the breaker boys and also child labour laws preventing children from working at such jobs, spelled the end of the breaker boys and children all together from working in the mines. But for many years the practice of hiring and working children went on, and this cost a lot of children, some of their limbs and, and far too often even their lives.

Perhaps the most horrific working conditions faced by a child, was those of the coalmines. Women and children were preferred more often, because they would work for less money and wouldn't complain as much. They also could work in smaller areas of the mines and reach into the smallest crevices. The conditions of the breaker boys were especially heart rendering.

The main reason that women were being used so frequently as drawers in the coal-pits? Well, a girl of 20 will work for 2shillings a-day or less, and a man of that age would want 3shillings & 6d. (Year -1841) - (2shillings is 10Pence in today's money)

Don't forget to visit our 'Children in the 1800's' page, as here you can see how life was for the young children of those days gone by.

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