Ledwell is a minor hamlet lying in a hugely rural area between Great Tew and Sandford St Martin in northern Oxfordshire, itself in a triangle formed between Oxford, Chipping Norton and Banbury. Within this triangle also lie Swerford, Chadlington, Kiddington and Rousham all of which feature in the history of these families. In Great Tew every cottage and house is built from the ironstone extracted from the local quarry, and most are thatched. In Sandford St Martin the base of the cross is medieval and in 1774 there was a pub, licenced as the Silver Tavern, then the Taylor’s Arms and by 1788 it was called the Crown. Chadlington is an old village, with an east and a west end. Kiddington Hall was built in 1673 and in the 1740s the gardens were an early project for Capability Brown. Chipping Norton was the major market town earning its wealth from the wool trade. There in 1796 Hitchman’s Brewery was founded in West Street, the Town Hall was completed in 1842 and the railway arrived in 1855. It is an area largely by-passed by the industrial revolution, and remains today as vastly rural.
In Sandford (St Martin was only added in 1884) Elizabeth Bonner was born in 1736, the second wife of John Blaby, also from Sandford. They married in the church there in 1767 but may have lived in nearby Ledwell. Before he died in 1779, he and Elizabeth (who lived on until 1813) had four children in nearby Ledwell. Son Samuel was a carpenter and wheelwright in Ledwell where he still lived when his son John was married in Sandwell in 1856. Another son Joseph, a labourer, was still living in Ledwell in 1841. After having three boys, Susannah (sometimes Sukey) was born probably in Ledwell and baptised in Sandford in 1774. Twenty three years later she and John Dean were “lodgers” in the parish of St Mary Magdalen in Oxford when they married in 1797.
John Dean was a Butcher. He and Susannah lived and raised their family of at least seven over the next twenty years, in Great Tew where John was buried in 1827. The family we can identify stayed as labourers in the local area or married into such families. Susannah Dean (nee Blaby) died in Great Tew in 1848.
Their eldest daughter Elizabeth Dean (born in Great Tew in 1797) in 1826 married Joseph West, a farm labourer, in Woodstock but his family came from Kiddington.
In rural Oxfordshire around 1740/50 John West, Joseph’s grandfather, probably moved from Chadlington to Kiddington at about the time that the proprietors of Kiddington Hall initially implemented the landscaping designs put forward by Capability Brown. John applied in 1754 to be married by Licence to Sarah Hawkes of nearby Combe with the Licence being guaranteed by most likely his father John West of Chadlington where this John lived with his wife Elizabeth (nee Buttler).
John and Sarah had 11 children in Kiddington over the next 20 years although there is no record of the future 3 of them, and a further 4 are known to have died in infancy with another who died aged 30. The 3 remaining were Mary (1766-1809), Richard (1769-1847) and Sarah (1793-1802). No baptismal record has yet been found for Richard but in Kiddington in 1786 Mary married Richard Tennant (witnessed by Sarah West), in 1792 Richard married Elizabeth Clark (witnessed by Sarah West and Nathaniel Parsons) and finally also in Kiddington in 1796 Sarah married Nathaniel Parsons (witnessed by Richard Tennant). The family connection seems therefore likely.
Richard West and Elizabeth Clark married in Kiddington in 1792. Elizabeth was the first child born to John Clark from nearby Great Bourton, and Elizabeth (nee Parsons, of a Kiddington family) had 11 children in the village. They do not appear to have been well off, as at 70 years of age they show in the 1841 census as still being Agricultural Labourers so if they had a trade, it is difficult to tell. But they had a better success rate than their parents with the survival of their children in that first-born John married twice having 11 children in Kiddington with his first wife, and 7 with his second. Charles similarly had 8 children in the village. James took his family to Waltham Abbey and started a London- based dynasty by the River Lee, while Edmund became a Coachman living in Kent. Eliza also appears to have gone to London. Ann and Charlotte both married locally, but there is no further trace of Nathaniel.
The 6th child Joseph (a farmer on his son David’s later marriage certificate) meanwhile married Elizabeth Dean in Woodstock in 1826 where they lived and started their family having all six children there in the next seven years.
Joseph and Elizabeth moved to Chipping Norton but Joseph died in 1836 aged only 32 (possibly the cause being something to do with a horse? I am sure that I read that somewhere…) and while Elizabeth (nee Dean) struggled on as a Laundress for another 9 years she too died early in 1845 leaving the six children to the marriage – 2 boys (born 1827 and 1830) and 4 girls who by then were aged between 12 and 19 – to be looked after around the family. The boys, David and George, generally found labouring jobs where they could, while the girls were put into service before marrying and having children of their own. In the late 1840s the younger of the two brothers George moved to Harborne/Bearwood in Birmingham and became a Brass Caster most likely at Henry Wiggin & Co in Wiggins Lane. And while the 1851 census shows the elder brother David still living with his cousin Walter as an Agricultural Labourer in Kiddington, within a year he too had moved to Birmingham to join George in the Brass Trade and in December 1852 possibly already with one child, he married Sarah Ann Perry who was born to a family of Black Country brass workers.
In Birmingham in 1851/2 David West arrived from Oxfordshire and met and married Sarah Perry (witnessed by George), an unmarried Mother of a daughter Emily (who may be David’s first born – she later changed her name to West). Sarah’s occupation shows as being that of a Japanner (an application of black lacquer to small mainly metal items). Sarah’s father shows as Charles Perry (deceased), an Inge Filer, and her mother Elizabeth (nee Roberts) who was working as a Warehousewoman. David and Sarah initially lived in the back-to-backs in Hockley at 23 Charlotte Street with Sarah’s parents. Subsequently around 1866 David’s sister Louisa (who had married her cousin William West in 1852) also arrived from Oxfordshire with their family already of 5 children. They lived a few doors around the corner from David, in Camden Street, and just a mile or two from brother George.
In Charlotte Street David and Sarah had a further five children before moving to Camden Street where they had four more although one of the final set of twins died before he was 13. The 5th child (2nd son), William was born in 1863/4. By 1871 they had moved round the corner in the back-to-backs at 12 Camden St where William’s elder brother Joseph, at no.13, is already shown in the Census as a Brass Dresser. The 1881 shows them at 54 Coplow St round the back of Henry Wiggins factory in Wiggins Lane, Ladywood where William is now also a Brass Caster like his brothers Joseph and Harry, all following in the mould of his father David and Uncle George.
In 1882 William West married Emily Horsfall (the daughter of Joseph Horsfall, a bell-forger also working at Henry Wiggin’s). They went to live with her family around the corner from the factory at 12 Northbrook Street. In all William and Emily had 11 children whose places of birth tell a story of constant movement in the next 22 years. The first two children, William and Albert, were born in 1884 and 1885 at 12 Northbrook Street, then Lilian (1887) was born in Aberdeen Street, Ernest (1889) & George (1891 – died in 1893) were born at 152 Warstone Lane, Harold (1893) was born at 205 Icknield Port Rd, Walter (1895) & Elsie (1897) were born back in Northbrook Street but at No48, and finally Florence (1899), Leonard (1901) and Beatrice (1904) were born next door at No 47. The 1911 Census shows the family at 75 Finch Road, Handsworth. By 1912 they lived at 165 Heathfield Rd, Handsworth. At the end of the Great War they lived along the Coventry Road in Yardley and in the early 20’s moved to 222 Bristol Road, a large house just beyond the junction with Priory Rd next to the Edgbaston Cricket Ground.
It seems William worked at Henry Wiggin from starting work at 14 in 1877 for the next 23 or 24 years before eventually setting up a business of his own. Kellys Trade Directory for 1904 shows that he had left with sufficient money and confidence set up St Paul’s Rolling Mills at Mitre House in Caroline St in Hockley as a German Silver Manufacturer where his name still shows above the door. It proved to be a very successful business. He went on to set up subsidiary works in Gt Tindall St. and in 1917 became a private limited company when William West & Sons Ltd was formed. The same year he purchased the land at the corner of Cliveland St and Newtown Row where he set out plans for Globe Works by the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal in the Gun Quarter of Birmingham with the ambition to be one of Birmingham’s finest rolling mills. William was one of the first metal manufacturers to use electric power rather than steam because it provided reliability. Subsequently he sold Globe Works in 1919 to Mond Nickel Company and used the money to buy the freehold of Mitre Works in Eyre St, a 2 acre site on the South side of the Winson Green loop of the Birmingham Main Line Canal in Spring Hill on the opposite corner to the now ageing Henry Wiggin Works. The canal-side location of both sites confirmed his view of the necessity of providing convenient loading and unloading facilities for his supplies and for his finished product.
Their increasing affluence however does not seem to have translated itself into providing further education for their children. All of the 10 surviving children may well have initially attended the nearby Barford Road School established in 1887 a street or two away from Henry Wiggins Works, at least until they were 14. The 1911 census, with the family now living at 75 Finch Road, shows the 5 male children over the age of 14 as Toolmaker, Warehouseman, Clerk, Roller and Millhand although Lily had broken the mould to become a Nurse. William it seems was a firm believer in teaching his children the family business. All of his children worked there at some stage starting from the bottom before being appointed to positions of more responsibility as they learned the trade. The only exception was the youngest son Leonard who went to University after the Great War, and at 20 years old in 1921 gained a BSc Degree in Metallurgy at Birmingham University. He became the Company Chemist and appears in the Company brochure of 1924. Clearly William had learned the necessity of the ‘appliance of science’ from his days at Henry Wiggin.
All the sons other than Walter stayed at home in the Great War protected by their profession that was vital to the war effort. Walter however volunteered in 1914. In the Royal Fusiliers 23rd Sportman’s Battalion he survived four years in the French trenches until he was killed in October 1918 breaking his Mother’s heart in the process. He is buried in Masnieres British Cemetery, 5 miles short of Cambrai, 30 miles from the Belgian border. In a Soldiers Will written in August 1918 Walter identified his Mother as his next of kin, stating her address as living with the family of his brother Harold at Hollyhurst, South Coventry Rd, Yardley. By the June 1921 Census however William and Emily are living at The Woodlands, 222 Bristol Road along with Harold, Elsie, Florence, Leonard and Beatrice with the elder four now married and living elsewhere. Then cracks in the family business started to appear
In 1925 the four younger sons Albert, Ernest, Harold and Leonard fell out with their father over the preferential treatment given to the eldest son, William. They formed their own company West Brothers & Co Ltd to operate separately from premises purchased in Cliveland Street by the canal in Central Birmingham. Increasingly they found themselves in competition with their father. William’s health started to fail and the trade of William West and Sons Ltd went into decline. William died in December 1927 aged 63 and with no one left to carry it on, the company was liquidated in 1928. Subsequently in 1930 the eldest son William also died. With two children now dead (three if you include George who died aged two in 1893) only the youngest two not married (neither Leonard nor Beatrice ever married although (spoiler alert) it appears that Leonard fathered a daughter) Emily moved out of the large family home round the corner to a new house on Pebble Mill Road, where she died in 1941.
Of the three elder daughters, Lilian continued in her occupation as a Nurse. She married Albert Odoni in 1915, and went to live in Hendon, London where they were ARP Wardens during the Blitz of the Second World War. Albert was a Cycle Storage Manufacturer originally from Switzerland, and together they had two sons, Walter and Philip. The next daughter Elsie married Leonard Lose, an Insurance Agent in 1928 and went to live in Esher, London where she had a daughter June. Thirdly Florence married John Mace, a Works Manager at a Jig and Tool Factory in Leamington Spa where he was a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service during the War. They had two daughters Patricia and Valerie, but they divorced in 1943.
This left the four sons all working in the new West Brothers & Co Ltd. Albert specialised mainly in the Rolling Mills and the Casting Shop while Harold was the Works Manager across the business including the Wire Mills which became a separate Limited Company in 1929. Ernie had the job of seeking new business and agreeing contracts with clients, and Len, being the qualified Metallurgist, worked in the Laboratory. But tensions grew, and in 1933 discrepancies in the Company accounts forced Albert to dismiss both Harold and Ernie who went on to run successful businesses elsewhere. By now Albert’s eldest two sons Ray (b.1913) and Don (b.1916) were already working in the business so were able to help Albert fill the gaps. The youngest son Alan (b.1918) was still at school, spending Summers cycling around Europe often with Ray. Ray specialised at the Wire Mills where he worked with his Uncle Leonard, whereas Don learned the processes of the Rolling Mills and Casting Shop with his father, where Alan was to join them after de-mobilising from the RAF in 1945.
And there they stayed for the next 50 years. Alan died first in 1985, followed by Ray in 1999 and Don in 2005 all pretty much still working for the family firm to the last. But by now the days of manufacturing and metal rolling in the UK were threatened by increasingly cheap imports from Eastern Europe and the Far East and the Companies were dissolved in 2006.
Ray had two children, Chris and Elizabeth from his second marriage to Eileen Hodgetts. Don married Mary Yost in Solihull in 1941 and had a daughter Chris and three sons David, Jeff and Peter. After Alan was demobilised from the RAF he married Edith Cork in Solihull in 1947 where they lived until 1964. They had four sons, Richard who married, had two children and now lives in Cornwall, Malcolm who took a year to hitch-hike to Australia in 1973-4 where he married a Queensland girl Sally Richards, had four children (one severely handicapped with a rare chromosome deficiency) and committed suicide in 2009, Ian who became a Chartered Accountant and married Sue Wells, also a Chartered Accountant in Fillongley in 1981, and Tony who never married, lives with his partner Chris and now runs his own children’s bookshop in Richmond, London.
Ian and Sue (nee Wells) now live in Knowle outside Solihull where Sue runs the family accountancy practice. They have two children, Andrew, an IT specialist and director at Humanists UK and who lives on a boat in London, and Jane, an Accountant and bookkeeper working with her mother, who lives in Stratford upon Avon with her two children, Aimee and Ben.
But Came They All to Birmingham 