Joseph Turner and Amy Caradine
Joseph Turner
Joseph was born in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England on 5 June 1853. His father was also called Joseph Turner and his mother was Eliza Thompson. His parents story is told on another page. Joseph was the fifth child of a total of 16 children.
Amy Caradine
Amy Caradine was born in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England on 7 February 1857. Her father Joseph Caradine and her mother was Elizabeth Eyles. Their story is told on a separate page.
Family Home
According the various census returns in the nineteenth century the Turner family, lived next door to the Royal Oak Inn in No 78 Broad Street.Â
In the photograph opposite, the Royal Oak is on the left and the Turners lived in the building that is now occupied by the Coventry Building Society.Â
The building beyond was the Post Office, and home to the Caradine family on the first floor.
Chipping Sodbury
Chipping Sodbury looked very different in the early twentieth century, and the wide thoroughfare of Broad Street, provided a convenient location for the local cattle market.
The space where the cattle are penned is currently used as car parking.
Amy Caradine
The Birth Certificate opposite confirms that Amy was born in Chipping Sodbury on 7 February 1857. It also confirms that her father was Joseph Caradine a Plasterer and Painter and her mother was Elizabeth Eyles.
Joseph Turner
The Birth Certificate opposite records the birth of Joseph Turner on 5 June 1853 in Chipping Sodbury. Joseph’s father was also called Joseph Turner and his mother was Eliza Thompson.
Master Cooper
Joseph worked as a cooper. A cooper made wooden barrels for the brewery trade. It was a skilled occupation, but sadly hand crafted wooden barrels are not in such demand nowadays, but in the late nineteenth century there would have a big demand both for new barrels and also the repair of old barrels.
A cooper is an old Greek word that means vat maker. The art of coopering started four-and-a-half thousand years ago with basically just a wooden top. You’re just taking pieces of wood, called staves, making them into a shape, putting an angle on them, to form a container. Barrels were used for everything from apples to jams, to meat, to fish, to whisky, to wine.
The one thing about coopering is that when you make your container, your cask, it has to be spirit tight. That is extremely difficult — to make a container that will not leak — because so much can go wrong in the whole process. As somebody said, there are no DIY coopers. There is no book that you can read. There’s nothing like that. You have to be taught it. It’s not something that you can pick up because you can make a container and fit it, and it just pours out, and you don’t know why. It’s definitely one of the more skillful of the trades.Â
Marriage
Joseph and Amy were married in the Baptist Chapel in Broad Street, Chipping Sodbury on 5 August 1880. The ceremony was officiated by Moses Eyles, who was a relative of the Caradine family and whose family also worked Cross Hands Quarry, which was also known as Turner’s Quarry or Eyles Quarry.
The Caradine family were Baptists, whereas Joseph’s parents were Church of England. Joseph declares his occupation as a cooper, whereas his father, as we know, was, by this stage, a stone mason, rather than a quarryman.
Death – Joseph Turner
Joseph Turner died on 22 February 1901. The cause of death was recorded as on his death certificate as phthisis, which was the phrase used at the time for tuberculosis.
Probate
Joseph died at the age of 47. Probate was granted to his widow Amy in the sum of £200.
Burial
Joseph was buried in the graveyard behind the baptist chapel, in the same grave as their son Willie.
Amy lived to the age of 75 years and died on 8 March 1932 and was buried in the same grave as her husband and son.