Shiplake consists of three settlements, Shiplake, Shiplake Cross and Lower Shiplake. These form a civil parish situated beside the River Thames two miles south of Henley and five miles north east of Reading. The river to the east and south of the villages is both the parish boundary and the border between Oxfordshire and Berkshire. The smaller village of Shiplake contains the parish church of St Peter & St Paul which dates from the 13th century. In 1773, as part of the efforts to ensure navigation along the river the Thames Navigation Commission built Shiplake Lock near the village where previously there had been just a weir and “flash Lock” that could only be navigated when water levels allowed. Made originally of fir, the lock was rebuilt in oak in 1787 after the fir decayed. There were two mills on the lock-island at this time. Alfred Lord Tennyson married there in 1850. Lower Shiplake became the larger settlement following the arrival of the railway in 1857.
Likely sometime in the mid 1770s according to her age recorded at her death, Mary Shaw was born, possibly in Rotherfield Peppard, a village just behind Shiplake, slightly further away from the river. It is in the Rotherfield church registers where her marriage to John Jemmett of Hurst in Berkshire is recorded in 1804.
Downstream from Shiplake, through Henley, the Thames follows the Berkshire-Buckinghamshire border as it passes Remenham on the Berkshire side, round to Hambleden Lock and the village of Hambleden to the north on the Buckinghamshire side. At Remenham the parish church of St Nicholas is Norman in origin and there are some fine houses owned through history by noble families, as is true of much of these lands either side of the Thames. Hambleden was a large ancient parish where Lord Cardigan who led the ill-fated charge of the Light Brigade was born in the Manor House in 1797. The area has many flint buildings reaching southwards to where Hambleden Bourne discharges into the Thames. Mill End lies at this junction in the very south of the parish, next to the river. Here are a centuries-old watermill and Hambleden Lock, also built in 1773.
In the 1750s there are records of a John Jemmett marrying Winifred Slater in Rotherfield Peppard. There is a record of a John Jemmet being born here. There is a Tax Redemption Record that lists John Jemmett as the occupier of the Flinthall and Luxters, next door to Mr Fisher who occupied the Lock-Mill and Wharf. There is another showing him to be the owner of six draught-horses, three wagons and two carts. Today The Old Luxter’s Barn is situated on the site of the Chiltern Valley Winery and Brewery.
In Rotherfield Peppard in 1804 Mary Shaw married John Jemmett by then of Hurst, some 15 miles to the south, on the eastern edge of Reading. Although the first child William was baptised in Rotherfield – as was common practice – probably he and his four siblings four children were all born in Hurst. William, the firstborn, went to live by Egham just the other side of Windsor in Surrey where he was a general farm labourer. The next, Elizabeth, (perhaps as a widow, Elizabeth Hamnet) married George Greenwood and may have gone to live in Pennsylvania. The third son George died aged almost two and the youngest, Kezia may also not have lived long. The fourth child, Sarah Jemmett, was born in 1816 and lived for 68 years. Her mother Mary Jemmett (nee Shaw) died in Hurst in 1830 and is buried there in the churchyard of St Nicholas.
Sarah Jemmett was aged 19 when she married Charles Clark in 1835 in St Leonard’s Church, Upton between Windsor and Slough. We have DNA links back to Sarah and Charles Clark.
There is a baptism of a Rebekah Appleton in June 1788 in St Mary’s Wimbledon where only the mother Ann is named. In August 1810, there is a Rebecca Appleton who marries Charles Clark in St Nicholas Church Guildford with Jane Clark as a witness. Subject to the identity of Jane, there is only one child known to this union to date where in 1813 in Shalford, Surrey, between Guildford and Godalming, there is a baptism of Charles Clark, son of William and Rebecca of Godalming. It is understood that the Clarks and the Appletons may have been Gardeners. Rebecca Clark (nee Appleton) died it seems before 1850, probably some ten years after her husband. Young Charles Clark was to become a Police Officer in Windsor, and it was in St Lawrence Church at nearby Upton St Lawrence on the edge of Slough that he married Sarah Jemmett in 1835. It was in Clewer on the edge of Windsor that they had 7 sons and 4 daughters over the next 25 years. Clewer is a village mentioned in the Domesday book, and rests at an early fording place of the River Thames at the bottom of the hill on which Windsor Castle stands. George was the 7th child born in 1851, the year of The Great Exhibition in London.
By 1861 Charles, Sarah and the family were living in Clarence Clump, a narrow footpath off Charles Street in Clewer. His eldest son, another Charles was already married and working as a local postman, the next, William, was a labourer but may at this point have been in the Royal Navy, while John had gone to Tipperary, Ireland maybe with the Army where he married a local girl and stayed for 20 years.
His eldest sister Rebecca was already in service in Windsor to a Master Artillery Gunner and James at 14 was a Bricklayer’s labourer. That left Sarah and George (then aged ten) and their three younger siblings Harriet, Daniel and Susannah still at home with their Mum.
At the time, living 5 doors away also in Clarence Clump, Clewer Lane were John Gould and his wife Ann. John was also a bricklayer’s labourer but with a violent temper who already had a record with the Police. In late December 1861 Ann went to work at the dispensary in Windsor and John went to the Prince of Wales pub with his mates, so as usual they left their daughter Hannah with their neighbour Sarah Clark for the day. In mid-afternoon the children went to Hannah’s house to light the fire and start the cooking for when Hannah’s parents got home. First to arrive was her father in a very drunk state. He sent all the children home but kept hold of Hannah to punish her for not caring for the house sufficiently. Before the other children could fetch their mother John Gould slit his daughter’s throat with a razor and killed her, dragging her body out into the street. He was arrested and in February 1862 was tried and found guilty of murder. He was hanged at the last ever public hanging at Reading Jail in mid-March, in front of a large crowd, with stalls selling produce and entertainment. Justice was quick, but subsequently the law was changed to permit only private hangings within the prison walls.
This event is likely to have had a profound effect on George and his siblings living in the heart of the Berkshire countryside. Within 2 years, probably through connections in the building trade, Rebecca had moved to Birmingham where she married a local Bricklayer and started a family. Before he was 20 George – also a bricklayer – had joined her in Birmingham to complete his training. By 1880 two of the other Clark children – Sarah and Daniel – had also arrived in Hockley from Windsor.
In 1870 George Clark married a Birmingham girl, Emma Grigg, whose family had for three generations been in the Button trade. It was in this world that George and Emma lived and raised their family. They had 11 children of their own living in the back-to-backs of Aston and Hockley between 1870 and 1892. In 1871 they were at 62 Hockley Street and by 1875 the family had moved to Ward Street. By 1881 they were in a court at 24 Unett Street and in 1891 they were at 161 Barr Street before moving back to 178 Unett Street by 1901. Of their children Charles went into the cycle trade, George followed his father in becoming a bricklayer, William appears to have been deaf and dumb from birth and may have died early while Arthur briefly tried his luck as a Hawker before becoming a brass stamper.
Of the others however five went into Jewellery and Precious Metals trade which was unusual in also providing opportunities for women. It may be that the Clark children all passed through the Jeweller’s Technical School. By the 1891 Census Alice at 15 was already described as a Silver Chain Maker. In 1897 she married Harry Smith, Silversmith and Jeweller. By 1901, aged only 16 and 14, Beatrice and Amy both were Gold Polishers, while Edwin aged 20 was a Jeweller. By 1911 Edwin and his youngest brother Robert worked together as Jewellers and Ring Makers, living together in Well Street in Hockley with Edwin’s wife Florence and the first three of their eight surviving children Herbert, Florence and John (Jack). Further children, Beatrice, Hilda, Madge and Stan would arrive over the next eight years, while Robert would eventually marry Gladys Maybury in 1921, but as far as I am aware, they remained childless.
As the War ended in 1919, aged 16, Herbert Clark started work at Eaton & Wrighton, Manufacturing Jewellers and Diamond Mounters at 121 Vyse St. Five years later he gave up this job (with good references) intending to emigrate to Winnipeg in Canada where there were distant relatives. However in two years he returned to Eaton & Wrighton before some time later setting up business with a partner as Clark and Graves under which they traded for a number of years. In 1930 he married Ruby, daughter of Frank and Mary-Jane Hickerton. Although Frank was now deceased having come back from the Great War much altered and unwell, previous to the War Frank too had been a Goldsmith and Ring-Maker for Mayell Brothers in Unett St., and Mary-Jane (nee Musto) too had spent 10 years as a Gold-Linker and Chain-Maker before their marriage. Herbert and Ruby went to live in Court Lane in Erdington where they stayed until their deaths in 1976 and 1965. They had one daughter, Rita in 1934 who later helped her mother in running a General Store in Highgate, Birmingham. In 1948 aged 14 and at a party for her friend Mary Preedy in Short Heath Park she met John Wells for the first time who also lived a couple of doors away Court Lane. They became inseparable and married in June 1952 just as Rita was about to turn 18. Rita and John had three children, Sue in 1953, John in 1955 and David in 1958. Grandchildren Andrew and Jane arrived in 1983 and 1985, and Clark in 2002. Rita Wells (nee Clark) died in April 2021.
But Came They All to Birmingham 