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Monday 10th February 2020 - Number 5963

Welcome

to our
Laws Family Register  

Robert Henry Laws
1828-1881
Captain of the Barque 'Woolhampton' 
my paternal Great Grandfather
&
This is Robert Henry's Wife 
Sarah Ann Laws, formerly Fuller
My paternal Great Grandmother
1846-1924

R I P

Gone but not forgotten, 
===================
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to all those who have borne our illustrious
surnames LAWS and LAWES Worldwide
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John P Laws  
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Henry Lawes
1595-1662

We have excluded records of living people to protect their privacy (GDPR 2018)
We only show births before 1920 and marriages before 1940.

If you are seeking to find folk after these years you should contact the registrar.


Lord, help me dig into the past and sift the sands of time, that I might find the roots that made

this family tree of mine

Lord, help me trace the ancient roads, on which our fathers trod, which led them through

so many lands, to find our present sod. 

Lord help me find an ancient book or dusty manuscript, that's safely hidden now away, 

in some forgotten crypt. 

Lord, let it bridge the gap, that haunts my soul when I can't find, that missing link between 

some name, that ends the same as mine.

===================================
A CHILD OF THE 1920s, 
AS SEEN FROM THE 1990s
by
John Robert Laws 1921-2008
Part 4.

If the cellar was inelegant, the other rooms were much better. After the kitchen, the most used room for living was the 'front room' often called the dining room. Today it would be called the living room but room usage in middle-class houses was different then, mainly due to the lack of central heating. In cold weather, a fire would be lit in the front room in the late afternoon on weekdays or well before lunch on weekends. Its heat output could only be controlled by stoking it up or letting it burn down with a little bit of draught control at the front and the alternatives of feeding it with lumps or slack.

The tiled fireplaces of the thirties and forties had not arrived; the fire was ornamented with tiled inserts on either side, enclosed by an iron surround. Above it the over mantle enclosed a big mirror and supported a heavy green onyx clock in a Palladium style with a gilt dial and ormolu mounts. If this were not enough, it was flanked by a pair of blue-brown Doulton glazed vases which served as spill holders.

It all belonged to a rather earlier age, even at that time, the product of a rather late marriage before WWI of a couple raised in late Victorian times. Furniture was good and solid, even a dining chair took a bit of lifting, but there was no fear of it wearing out or falling apart and the room was big enough to hold a lot of it. As it was really a living room rather than a dining room, the fire had a large overstuffed armchair on either side and there was a matching sofa along the opposite wall. One recess beside the chimney breast was occupied by a tall glazed mahogany bookcase and the other held a drop front coal-scuttle which provided a little tabletop beside the chair. An enormous mahogany sideboard sat against the wall opposite the window, the back of its tall overmantle filled by a mirror. Tapered square columns supported the tester style top on which stood a reproduction bronze statue of an athlete. I suppose the original statue must be Greek but although some thirty years or so later I spotted a full-size replica in a public park in Liege, I remain in ignorance.

Ornaments abounded and on the sideboard were an epergne for fruit and flowers and a couple of silver plate and glass urns which never contained anything. More useful was the plated silver stand to hold the soda siphon and the plated vegetable dishes sitting on the long lace cloth. 'Cleaning the plate' was a regular chore and but one of many labour-intensive housekeeping of those days. There was, of course, a heavy mahogany dining table and half a dozen chairs for the main purpose of the room. Apart from mealtimes, a dark crimson chenille tablecloth with a fancy fringe all round covered the table and in the middle stood another epergne, plated and just for flowers this time. Last but not least the obligatory aspidistra sat in a magnificent state of growth on ornately carved ebony stand in the window bay, its pot enclosed by a handsome china jardinière of deep blue and white. From this window, at dusk, the lamplighter could be seen on his rounds lighting the gas street lights one by one with a long pole he carried over his shoulder.  
Part 5.
There seemed to be a wider range of people then than there are now. There was no question or concept of equality. To me, Mum was all-important but to everyone, Dad was 'The Boss’ and this nickname was used all the time between mother and her helper Lottie the maid. Lottie was a sort of auntie to me, having been part of the family longer than I had. This help was much needed by my mother not only on account of the housework but because catastrophe had struck my parents when my sister Mary had suffered brain damage as a complication of meningitis. This happened at about the age of three after which there was no further mental progress although she grew up physically but dumb.

Standards of living then were much lower then but in this respect, we were fortunate, though everyone worked hard. It is my belief that most people were as happy then as now except where poverty and illness coincided. It is the pressures of daily life that makes for unhappiness and these were just different. In many ways, it is the small comforts and conveniences that we would miss if we had to step back in time.

We did not have swarms of relations; the Victorian habit of enormous families had gone just in time. There were two maiden aunts, my father’s sisters, who lived together in the bottom part of a house off West Green Road. They worked in garment manufacture and their smallish rooms were crammed with too large furniture inherited from my grandparents of the true Victorian era who I never knew. Some of it would be museum pieces now. There was a bed with a half tester rail over it and time to time they would occasionally come to tea on Sunday or to Christmas lunch. I remember a Christmas present of a little purse with two half-crowns in it, the old-age pension was then just four of these coins, and although they were still working at that time, this was soon to be their only weekly income.

My mother had just one sister, Alice who lived in Manchester, where her husband Jack was a lecturer in zoology. I only met him once, he had a nasty limp as a result of Royal Flying Corps service in WWI and he did not make old bones. Mother went and visited Alice after he had died and took me with her in her little car to help find the way 172 miles according to the AA route which we followed. Alice had a nice house in a pleasant suburb but before long she returned to her roots in Devon and spent the rest of her years in Kingswear.

There was also my uncle Joe, really a cousin of my father though I think he had been brought up as a brother and was part of a trio of sailing enthusiasts with my dad and his younger brother Albert. The three of them used to go sailing in Devon and Cornwall and my father and Albert managed to acquire wives in the process. No doubt this put an end to the sailing but my father still liked to row and after he bought his first car in 1925 he would take me over to the river Lea on a Sunday morning and row from the boathouse at one lock, up to the next lock and back. Being Sunday, the horse-drawn barges were all at rest and the locks inactive. It was already partly industrial along the river, the canal really, but the marshes were open and flat, crossed by the long new concrete bridge of Lea Bridge Road which led on towards Epping Forest.  

Albert and his Cornish wife Louise were in Harbin, in the wilds of Manchuria so we saw them very rarely, I only remember two occasions. A slow boat to China really was slow before the airlines and the Trans Siberian railway not a journey for the hurried or the timid though they went that way at least once.

Joe and his wife May lived in a 1920's new semi in Palmers Green and were the relations we saw most. He was a keen gardener, which my father certainly wasn't but they were pretty good friends and Joe and May had Christmas lunch with us for some years. 
To a child, Christmas was important of course, and the old-time way of feasting in the greatest abundance that funds permitted was still strong. There were no supermarkets and no domestic refrigerators of course, and 'nouvelle cuisine ‘hadn’t been heard of either. I do not think that there was as much obesity then as now, the ignorant did not have the means for it and most of the prosperous were working too hard to get fat. Beer was however proportionately cheaper and a few more men could be seen carrying the mark of it in their big bellies or red noses.

Until school age, there was not a lot of contact with adults outside the family. One saw the neighbours in their gardens from time to time but it was not till a little later that a family came next door with whom we became friendly. The Kemble’s had five offspring, five daughters for starters the youngest in her late teens, and a son Harry a bit older than myself with whom I became quite friendly. For some years we were regular cycling companions.



To be continued tomorrow


Extracted from our database today 10th February

1761 - Marriage: Thomas LAWS-3591 and Hannah CARLETON-3599, Billerica,             Middlesex County Massachusetts United States
1782 - Baptism: Kitty LAWS-23775, Portsmouth Hampshire England
1797 - Marriage: James LAWS-3318 (Merchant Life)  and Mary Anne Mrs.                     BEANE-3324, Great Yarmouth Norfolk England

1799 - Birth: Hannah BROOKS-31308, (Laundress)  Stapleton Gloucestershire               England
1807 - Marriage: Rufus Alexander MARSDEN-30532 and Elizabeth LAWS-                     30533, Saint Pancras Middlesex England
1810 - Baptism: John JENNINGS-17058, (Colliery Labourer) Wakefield,
           West Yorkshire England
1823 - Burial: Samuel LAWS-44794, Beeston Norfolk England

1825 - Christen: Benjamin LAWS-6230, (Labourer)  Hockwold cum Wilton,                     Norfolk, England

1834 - Birth: Clarissa Caroline BRENTON-22503, Pike County Indiana 
            United States
1839 - Baptism: Charlotte LAKEY-6063, Booton Norfolk England

1840 - Marriage: Matthew LAWS-14709 (Glassmakers Labourer)  and
           Jane DONNISON-25391, Newcastle upon Tyne Northumberland England

1846 - Death: Charles Adam LAWS-19000, 
1854 - Death: Charlotte LAWS-10883, Boyle County, Kentucky United States
1855 - Birth: George LAWES-43896, (Retired Farm Bailiff) 
1861 - Burial: Thomas LAWS-49263, (Labourer)  Folkestone Kent England

1861 - Birth: James Thomas LAWS-23604, Lincoln County Tennessee 
           United States
1865 - Birth: Leopold George HOCKINGS-24828, Brisbane Queensland                            Australia
1866 - Marriage: Isaac LAWS-32921 and Jemima GREENWELL-32924, 
           Johnson City, Washington County, Tennessee United States
1866 - Birth: Emily Jane LAWES-13321, Booton Norfolk England
1878 - Death: Sarah Elizabeth LAWS-34749,
1880 - Birth: Rosina Alice DUNKERSON-46267, 
1888 - Birth: Ethel Jane LAWES-37221, (School Teacher) West Lavington                         Wiltshire England
1888 - Birth: John Peter LAWS-6432, (Farmer) Hunwick Durham England
1889 - Marriage: John George LAWES-44537 (Fish Fryer)  and Emily Dixon                   PHILLPOTT-45877, (a Widow at marriage)  Aston Warwickshire England
1891 - Birth: Arthur LAWS-41533, (Gardener Chauffeur And Manager) 
1896 - Marriage: T H LAWS-39031 and R E CARNES-39032, Franklin County               Texas United States
1897 - Birth: Florence Elaine SMEAD-22022, 
1900 - Birth: John Hodgson LAWS-44644, Penshaw Durham England
1902 - Death: Frances Vanessa SMITH-21844, (Silk Weaver) Norwich Norfolk                 England
1903 - Birth: Winifred Celendine LAWES-45374, (Domestic Service)  Heacham                Norfolk England
1903 - Death: Blanche Edith LAWS-6880, Edmonton Middlesex England
1910 - Birth: Martha Olga BRUYCKER-50507, California United States
1910 - Birth: Alfred George LAWS-4185, Rawupindi INDIA
1912 - Burial: William Thomas LAWS-7018, Waverley New South Wales Australia
1913 - Birth: Ethel LAWS-26012, 
1916 - Death: Benjamin LAWS-6230, (Labourer) Richfield, Sevier, Utah
           United States
1917 - Death: Mary Eleanor JONES-35142, Manchester Lancashire England
1920 - Arrival: Helen Maria LUMBY-2950, (Hospital Nurse)  Newfoundland                     Canada
1920 - Residence: Emily Hewlett EDWARDS-2804, (Adopted, Teacher of Art)                   Staverton Gloucestershire England
1923 - Marriage: Pete NELSON-19124 and Katie Pearl LAWS-19123, 
1928 - Death: John LAWS-7874, Bury St. Edmunds Suffolk England
1931 - Death: John Samuel DUNKERLEY-7096, (Botany Lecturer at
           Manchester University) Victoria Park, Manchester LAN England
1944 - Death: Thomas LAWS-4551, (Train Cleaner Retired) Billericay Essex                     England
1949 - Death: George LAWS-16166,
1950 - Death: Irene Alice LAWS-20341, Neasden Middlesex England
1953 - Death: Martha Hopper LAWS-6429, Hunwick Durham England
1954 - Death: Agnes LAWS-34698, 
1955 - Death: Sarah Elizabeth LAWS-5510, Lowestoft Suffolk England
1956 - Death: Fanny Elizabeth ARMSTRONG-3795, 
1986 - Death: Walter Charles LAWS-50545, Mariposa California United States
1989 - Death: Cecil Arthur Edward LAWS-14219, Coolah New South Wales                      Australia
1990 - Death: Ann Kennedy LAWES-48738, Whistable Kent England
1996 - Death: Hale Louis LAWS-50255, Lincoln, Lancaster County, Nebraska                   United States
1999 - Death: Vera LAWS-14259, 
2000 - Cremation: Heather Jean LAWES-27585, (Management Trainee)
            Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent England
2003 - Death: Douglas Clifford LAWS-30955, Waveney Suffolk England but                      buried Halesworth Suffolk England
2004 - Death: Dewey Edward LAWS-13736, 
2004 - Death: Mary Victoria KEISLER-13257, Memorial Medical Center,                         Arlington, Texas United States
2008 - Death: Nancy PATTERSON-KING-28755, Nambucca Heads 
           New South Wales Australia
2010 - Burial: Opal Fay Louise LAWS-49372, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 
           United States
2011 - Death: Susan Ann SPENDIFF-13958, South Croydon Surrey England
           (My maternal cousin)
2012 - Death: Grace Marjorie DINGMAN-41755, Shreveport, Caddo 
           Lousianna United States

MORE TOMORROW

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Sharon Nicola LAWS
2008 Olympics Cyclist
Environmental adviser for Rio Tinto Zinc 
1974-2017
R I P



The content provided on this site is not guaranteed to be error-free 
It is always advised that you consult original records.




======================================================

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THE GUILD OF ONE-NAME STUDIES

www.one-name.org

registrar@lawsfamilyregister.org.uk

==========================================================

With grateful thanks to Simon Knott 

for his permission to reproduce his photographs on this site 
see 
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

==========================================================


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