Chipping Sodbury

Richard Turner and Margery Yeates

Bessie Hine, Black and White Cat Club, Chipping Sodbury, Cyril Yeates, Francis Turner, Gloucestershire, Gretta Wright 2

Richard Turner and Margery Yeates

Richard Turner

Richard was born in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England on 22 January 1915. His parents were Francis Turner and Bessie Hine. Their story is told on a separate page.

Margery Yeates

Margaretta Mary Beatrice Yeates, who was known as ‘Margery’, was born in London, England on 14 November 1914. Her parents were Cyril Yeates and Gretta Wright. Their story is told on a separate page.

Richard Turner and Margery Yeates

Richard and Margery

Richard grew up in Chipping Sodbury, where his parents ran the Post Office. After attending boarding School at Taunton School, he moved to London and trained as an accountant.

Margery was born in Pembroke Gardens, Chelsea and attended the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, in St Leonards on Sea. After leaving school she went to finishing school in Friburg, Switzerland in 1931.

She returned to London, where she worked a secretary to an author.

She met Richard at a bus stop on her way to work.

Birth of Margery

Margery was born at her parents home of 12 Mandeville Place, St Marylebone, London. Her father Cyril was a landed proprietor, having inherited several farms and properties around Kendal in the Lake District.

Margery Yeates Birth Certificate

Margery Yeates as a child

Margery – Early Years

Cyril and Gretta hired the services of a children’s nanny called Mary Fahy. Mary’s family were from Ireland, but she had grown up in a children’s orphanage in Westbury on Trym, Bristol.

Mary worked for several important families in London, but returned to look after Cyril in his old age and also become the nanny to their daughter and son, Anne and Anthony Turner. She is remembered with great affection by the family as “Aunty Mary”.

Margery as a Baby

Margery’s early years were spent during the First World War. Her father who had been a rifle marksman, regularly competing in the Imperial Meeting at Bisley. As a result he was conscripted as a marksmanship instructor at a military camp near Winchester training the troops, before they were transferred to France.

Her mother would bring Margery down to Winchester at weekends and they would all go to Bournemouth for the weekend, as her father got weekend leave from the camp.

Margery’s parents were prolific letter writers, and just like Margery’s grandparents, retained all their correspondence for posterity. We still have these letters so have a valuable insight into their lives.

Margery Yeates as a baby

Margery Yeates with Cat

The Black and White Cat Club

Margery’s parents shared a fascination with showing cats at competitions around the country. So, Margery grew up with lots of cats around the house.

Unfortunately the cats were show cats so they were very definitely not family pets.

Schooldays

Margery seemed to enjoy the boarding school life in St Leonards on Sea, even sending her daughter to the same convent, the senior school of which had moved to Mayfield in Sussex.

Both Margery and Richard were only children.

Margery Yeates sitting on grass

Margery Yeates on left skiing with Doreen Ransome

Friburg, Switzerland

Margery seems to have had a carefree time in Switzerland writing regularly to her parents, regaling them with stories of a very full social life. She also wrote to her mother’s siblings in London and New York.

Margery seemed to have managed regular trips to the ski slopes and also outings to the theatre and the ballet.

Richard Turner

Although he grew up in Chipping Sodbury where his mother was appointed as Post Mistress, the family spent a lot of time with his mother’s family in Dunster, on the north coast of Somerset.

As many of the Hines had attended Taunton School, so, in turn did Richard. A report from the school to his parents suggested he might be able to pass the Civil Service Exam, but also saying that he should easily be able to get a suitable position at a firm in the City of London.

Richard Turner

Margery Yeates in Oare Church, Porlock

Dunster

During their many visits to Dunster and Minehead, they liked to walk from Porlock Weir to St Mary’s Church, Oare, which is in woodland further along the coast.

The church stands in a lovely rural setting in the Exmoor hamlet of Oare, in the heart of what is now known as the Doone Valley, east of Lynton.

Oare Church draws visitors from across the world, drawn by its links to the popular 19th-century novel Lorna Doone, by RD Blackmore. It was here that the novel’s heroine, the eponymous Lorna, was shot at the altar during her wedding to the novel’s hero, John Ridd.

Accountancy

After leaving Taunton School, Richard moved to London where te took up a position with a London company in order to train as a chartered accountant.

He worked for various companies culminating in his appointment as Chief Accountant at the Confederation of British Industries (CBI).

Richard Turner

Margery Yeates by lake

Marriage

Richard and Margery were married in the autumn of 1939 and they lived initially with her father in Pembroke Gardens, Chelsea. Her mother had died in 1937 before they were married.

Dorset

Margery’s parents were regular holiday visitors to Dorset, in particular Chideock. Richard and Margery seem to have inherited the same love of West Dorset and eventually decided to buy a weekend cottage in Burton Bradstock on the Chesil Beach coast.

Richard, through his friendship with the artist A R Thomson R A, became a member of the Chelsea Arts Club, eventually becoming it’s treasurer. From what I have gathered, life in the Chelsea Arts Club seemed to revolve around the bar. It must have been a far cry from his father’s vow of temperance with the Baptists in Chipping Sodbury. His daughter Anne had her 21st birthday there.

I remember on one occasion visiting Richard and Margery at their cottage in Dorset. As a prospective son in law I was very much on my best behaviour. I was invited to go with Richard to “walk the dog”. I was a bit bemused by this as they didn’t have a dog, but it turned out that “walking the dog” involved walking round the corner to the Three Horseshoes Pub for a little pre-dinner refreshment! Other coded invitations might include “going to see a man about a dog”.

In keeping with the traditions of London Pubs, Richard alway stood at the bar, ramrod straight, never using a bar stool or other chairs. He would simply pass the time of day with his friends from the village.

Richard Turner with Anne Turner

Margery Yeates

Margery on Horseback

Presumably taken during their many visits to Dorset.

Milton House, Fernshaw Road, Chelsea

For most of their married life Richard and Margery lived a first floor flat in Milton House. the ground floor was occupied by a famous artist who had been commissioned to paint a group portrait of the extended Royal Family.

As the artist was pre-lingually deaf, the Royal Family agreed to attend Milton House for the sittings, rather than Buckingham Palace. Anne remembers peering through the bannisters of the staircase in her school holidays watching members of the royal family arrive for their portrait sittings.

Milton House, 2 Fernshaw Road, London

Bramble Cottage, Burton Bradstock, Dorset

Bramble Cottage

Richard eventually retired from the CBI and moved permanently to their cottage in Burton Bradstock. He worked as an accountant for Bridport Gundry in Crewkerne, before taking well earned retirement. He always says it was the best job he had ever had.

Richard and Margery

Visiting San Francisco in the early 1980s.

Richard Turner and Margery Yeates

Richard Turner – Burton Bradstock

Richard Turner

Richard Turner enjoying his retirement, reading a book in the garden of Bramble Cottage, Burton Bradstock, Dorset.

Ancestor Chart

Joseph Turner and Amy Caradine

Chipping Sodbury, Eliza Thompson, Elizabeth Eyles, Gloucestershire, Joseph Caradine, Joseph Turner 0

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.

Broad Street Chipping Sodbury

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.

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.

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.

Chipping Sodbury Market 1920

Birth – Amy Caradine 7 February 1857

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.

Birth – Joseph Turner 5 June 1853

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.

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.

Marriage Certificate Joseph Turner & Amy Caradine 5 Aug 1880

Death – Joseph Turner 22 February 1901

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.

Joseph Turner – Probate 1901

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.

Ancestor Chart

Francis Turner and Bessie Hine

Amy Caradine, Chipping Sodbury, Dunster, Gloucestershire, John Hine, Joseph Turner, Mary Ann Knox, Post Office, Somerset, Telegraphist 0

Francis Turner and Bessie Hine

Francis Turner

Francis Turner was born in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England on 10 May 1885. His father was Joseph Turner a cooper and his mother was Amy Caradine who ran the Post Office. Their story is told on a separate page.

Bessie Hine

Bessie Hine was born in Dunster, Somerset, England on 2 July 1878. Her father was John Hine who was a stonemason and local builder and her mother was Mary Ann Knox. Their story is told on a separate page.

Staff of Chipping Sodbury Post Office

Chipping Sodbury Post Office

The photograph opposite shows the staff of Chipping Sodbury Post Office. Standing, third from left is Francis Turner who was a mechanical engineer and telegraphist.

I think the person seated in front of him is Bessie Hine, but I am not certain about this.

Telegraphy

Francis Turner records his occupation as a Mechanical Engineer and later as a Telegraphist.

Telegraph systems, a key innovation during the Industrial Revolution, soon spread across the world. Extensive systems appeared across Europe by the later part of the 19th century, and by 1866 the first permanent telegraph cable had been successfully laid across the Atlantic Ocean; there were 40 such telegraph lines across the Atlantic by 1940.

The electric telegraph transformed how wars were fought, how money was sent and how newspapers conducted business. Rather than taking weeks to be delivered by horse-and-carriage mail carts, pieces of news could be exchanged between telegraph stations almost instantly. The telegraph also had a profound economic effect, allowing money to be “wired” across great distances.

Telegrams, often delivered to homes and businesses by delivery boys, were a popular way of communicating during the 1920s and 1930s, when long-distance calls were more expensive than a telegram.

Telegraph Machine

The Hine Siblings: Left to Right Edie, Susie, Dick, Jack, Blanche and Bessie

Bessie Hine Family Photograph

The photograph opposite shows Bessie Hine on the far right with all her siblings.

Marriage

Francis and Bessie were married in the Wesleyan Chapel Dunster on 17 August 1910. Francis was 25 years old and was working as a mechanical engineer. Bessie was 31 years old and was the Postmistress at Chipping Sodbury Post Office.

Interestingly Francis records his father’s occupation as a Dairyman, rather than as a Cooper. I’m not sure whether a dairyman was someone who ran a dairy farm or whether he worked in a dairy, selling or delivering dairy products, like a milkman.

Marriage – Francis Turner & Bessie Hine 17 August 1910

Francis Turner on the beach at Minehead with his granddaughter

Minehead

When Francis and Bessie retired from the Post Office in 1938, they moved to Minehead, near where Bessie grew up in Dunster.

In 1939 they were living in Elm Grove, Minehead. Francis records his occupation as retired Telegraphist and Sorting Clerk and Bessie as a retired sub Postmistress.

By the end of the war they had moved to Ingleside in Church Road, Alcombe, which is between Minehead and Dunster.

Alcombe, Minehead

Francis and Bessie moved to the property Ingleside in Church Street, Alcombe. He was fit in his retirement and used to bicycle into Minehead.

Ingleside, Alcombe

Newspaper article reporting the death of Bessie Hine

Death of Bessie Hine

Bessie Hine died in Alcombe on 3 November 1950, and she was cremated in Bristol.

Ancestor Chart

Gravestone - Joseph Caradine 11 Nov 1874

Joseph Caradine and Elizabeth Eyles

Baptist Church, Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, Grace Beames, Hope Eyles, Jane Gibson, Postmaster, William Caradine 0

Joseph Caradine and Elizabeth Eyles

Joseph Cararadine

Joseph Caradine was born about 1829 in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England. His father was William Caradine a stone mason and his mother was Grace Beames.

Elizabeth Eyles

Elizabeth Eyles was born in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England on 3 June 1827. Her father was Hope Eyles, who was also a stone mason, and her mother was Jane Gibson.

Birth of Elizabeth Eyles – 3 June 1827

Birth of Elizabeth Eyles

The illustration opposite is a copy of the Baptismal Register for the Parish of Chipping Sodbury. The entry for Elizabeth Eyles is marked in red.

The birth of Joseph Caradine in 1829 was recorded in the non-conformist register as the Caradine family worshipped at the Baptist Church in Chipping Sodbury.

Broad Street

The Caradine family lived above the Post Office in Chipping Sodbury. In the nineteenth century it was located on the south side of Broad Street.

The Post Office was run by Joseph Caradine, then by his daughter Amy who married Joseph Turner, and finally by his grandson’s wife Bessie Hine, but by that stage the Post Office had moved to Horse Street.

Aerial View of Broad Street

Appointment of Joseph Caradine 1859

Post Master

Joseph Caradine was appointed Postmaster for Chipping Sodbury on 8 October 1859. and the family lived above the Post Office.

The illustration opposite records his appointment in the official Post Office Register.

Elizabeth

In a Street Directory for Chipping Sodbury dated 1894, which is twenty years after Joseph died, Elizabeth is still running the Post Office and a stationery shop.

Elizabeth Eyles – Street Directory 1894

Gravestone – Joseph Caradine 11 Nov 1874

Joseph Caradine

Joseph died at the young age of 45 and is buried in the cemetery behind the Baptist Church in Chipping Sodbury.

Ancestor Chart

Joseph Turner and Eliza Thompson

Chipping Sodbury, Cross Hands Quarry, George Turner, Gloucestershire, Isaac Thompson, Mary Thompson, Stonemason 0

Joseph Turner and Eliza Thompson

Joseph Turner

Joseph Turner was born in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England in 1825. Like his father George Turner he was a stone quarryman, and worked the underground Cross Hands Quarry near Old Sodbury.

Information regarding Cross Hands Quarry and Tormarton Quarry supplied courtesy of South Gloucestershire Mines Research Group.

Eliza Thompson

Eliza Thompson was born in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England in 1827 and was baptized in Chipping Sodbury Church on 24 February 1827, by her parents Isaac and Mary Thompson.

Horse Street, Chipping Sodbury

Residence

According to the various nineteenth century census returns, Joseph Turner and Eliza Thompson lived in Horse Street, Chipping Sodbury.

The Post Office which was run by his grandson Francis Turner and his wife Bessie Hine, is located on the right hand side next to the lamp post.

Tortworth Court, Wooton under Edge

In February 1853 it was reported that the dressings of the windows, doors, arches etc of Earl Ducie’s new mansion at Tortworth Court, Gloucestershire are of stone from the three quarries at Crosshands and the Farleigh Down quarries near Bath.

Tortworth Court, now the Four Pillars Hotel

Turners Quarry, opposite Cross Hands Hotel, Tetbury Road, Old Sodbury

Cross Hands Quarry or Turner’s Quarry

Of these three quarries, Cross Hands Quarry, also recorded on maps as Eyles’ Quarry and Turner’s Quarry, was an underground one. Directories and the census returns indicate that Thomas Eyles worked the quarry from before 1851 up to circa 1868 when his wife or widow described herself as a Stone Mason (Cutter).

From 1870 Thomas’ sons, James and Joseph worked the quarry. James was the active partner but was retired by 1891, in which year William J Collins of Old Sodbury is recorded as a Freestone Quarry Master. He worked it up to 1895 or 6, and was followed by James Mills a Chipping Sodbury builder who worked it up to 1900, after which it disappears from the record.

To complicate the above orderly succession of quarry masters, there is a surviving letter dated February 1881 from the HM Inspector of Mines addressed to Joseph Turner at Tormarton Quarries, Chipping Sodbury! Further research is needed to resolve this conundrum.

On the ground there are the usual tumps and hollows, earlier OS maps record a now lost shaft. It was still possible to get underground in 1988; the quarry is heavily gobbed up (almost to the ceiling) with waste stone retained behind high neat drystone walls flanking a very narrow haul road. The haul road ruts are about 3 feet gauge and there are small (about 6 inch square) chog holes in the ceiling, showing that a small crane was used here. Since 1988 the access has been obscured by sheep carcasses, old washing machines etc.

Tormarton Quarry

The photograph opposite is of Brookmans Quarry, Tormarton and shows a typical underground stone quarry.

Brookmans Quarry, Tormarton. Image courtesy of South Gloucestershire Mines Research Group

Baptism of Joseph Turner 25 December 1825

Birth of Joseph Turner

Joseph was born sometime in 1825 and was baptized in the Parish of Chipping Sodbury on Christmas Day 1825, by his parents George Turner and Mary Coomes.

Birth of Eliza Thompson

Like her husband Joseph, Eliza Thompson was baptized in Chipping Sodbury Church on 24 February 1827.

Baptism – Eliza Thompson 24 February 1827

Marriage of Joseph and Eliza Turner

Marriage

Joseph Turner and Eliza Thompson were married in Chipping Sodbury on 28 December 1845.

Underground Quarries

In the 1861 census, Joseph Turner describes his occupation as “Stone Quarryman”. Turner’s Quarry only employed two staff below ground and one above ground with an annual output in 1885 of 70 tons.

By the 1881 census, Joseph has now become a stone mason. I take this to mean that he is no longer working below ground removing the stone blocks, but is now working as a mason to dress the stone to the profiles that will be required for the building for which it is destined. An altogether more skilled and less hazardous occupation.

A stone mason dressing a cornice stone.

Eliza Thompson

Eliza Thompson died and was buried in the new churchyard next to Waitrose on the Wickwar Road on 23 February 1894. Joseph and Eliza, during her life together raised sixteen children over 27 years. A remarkable achievement.

Her husband Joseph died in 1900 and is buried in the same grave as his wife Eliza.

Ancestor Chart