Oxford's, or if not, my, Xanadu, was 130 Banbury Road. A pleasure dome. Where the sacred river ran through a garden of delight - WGRA's lifetime achievement for me. And in many ways the starting point for this family history. Strangely though, I have no recollection whatever of ever having a meal at Somerville - except possibly tea in the summerhouse.
My grandpa William George Reed Archer (“WGRA”) lived at Somerville House, 130 Banbury Road, Oxford from about 1925 to about 1959. I became aware of the house and garden at the age of about 6 or 7 in 1947/8 as a delightful haven of about 2 acres, with lawns and orchards and a massive cage for soft fruit, a greenhouse, a summerhouse and all sorts of secret places where one could quietly play to one’s heart’s content. I suppose it was a rich man’s home, and to that extent my celebration of it may seem to conflict at least a little with what I have said elsewhere about wealth. So be it. I will in due course refine the comment. Looking back, Somerville represented my ‘golden country’. A place symbolising the green and beautiful earth, to be savoured and remembered.
Whose House Was it?
cv for: William George Reed Archer
(Oxford businessman/Freeman of Oxford/Methodist/ Family man/ Gardener/ Victorian /my paternal grandfather):
(Referred-to as ‘WGRA’ in this history):
Reminder (to me) of the Raison d’etre for this Curriculum Vitae:
From the preface to Simon Schama’s ‘A history of Britain’ (BBC published 2000), slightly editorially adapted and condensed for inclusion here:
History (including family history – per pba) is a living instruction, not a spare-time luxury, and a requirement of informed citizenship.
Names:
William George Reed Archer;
No previous ‘Williams’ that I am aware of;
George, from his father, Alfred George Archer;
Reed, from his mother’s maiden name – the Reeds being a Devon-based family, his maternal grandfather, Edward Reed, being born at Bovey Tracey, Devon, and married to Eliza Saunders, likewise born at Bovey Tracey.
Dates:
Born 6th (birth and death certificates say 7th ) October 1878 at Shillingford, Oxon;
Died 8th June 1969 at Cowley Road Hospital, usual address then being 19 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford (per death certificate), age 90 (pba). Cause of death given on death certificate: (pba attempted reading: (1a) myocardial ischaemia; due to (1b) Coronary atheroma; (2) Ryelonephritis due to benign hypertrophy of prostate).
Parents:
Sixth (see below) child of: Alfred George Archer (Inland Revenue Officer, residing at Shillingford, Warborough, per birth certificate); and
Olive Emma Archer (formerly Reed), who was buried at Wolvercote Cemetery on 22nd July 1930, in the grave in which her eldest child Olive Rose Archer (buried 21st May 1953) was subsequently buried.
The ‘Freedom’ envelope (containing nothing, but giving dates/names etc of some Archer freemen), indicates that WGRA was the 2nd son of AGA/OEA. He became the second (living) son, when his elder brother Teddy died in 1888, at which time he was aged about 10 and he then had 3 elder sisters: Rose, Lena, and Olive. Eventually he also had 3 younger brothers (Bert, John and Charles (Charlie?)), and 2 younger sisters (Katie and Blanche).
Siblings: (initial names/data from Gill’s family tree):
Olive Rose (Rose) born 1872; is
Alfred Edwin (Teddy), 1873 – 1888;
Ernest (Ernie) born 1874, married Maria van Dongen;
Helena Emma (Lena) born 1875, married Harry Brough;
Bertha Olive (Olive), born at ‘Shillingford, Warborough’ 26.6.1877 (birth cert.), married Harry John Rowe (age 31 years, bachelor, draper, of Eagle House, Leigh Road, Eastleigh, Hants, father Charles Thomas Rowe, bootmaker) on 11th March 1903 at ‘The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Walton Street, Oxford’ (marriage cert.);
William George Reed (‘Willie’, so said Walter Gilder to me) himself, (1878 – 1969), married (1902) Elizabeth Emma Gilder, and (1943, aged 65) Mary Kate Ray;
Herbert John (Bert) (1880 - ?);
Francis Kate (Katie) (1882 - ?) married name ‘Nurse’;
Percy John (John) (1884 – approx 1899);
Charles James, (1886);
Blanche Annie (1890 - ?); married name Staines;
Notes on the boys: (i) of the boys, the eldest, Teddie, died aged about 15 from (pba recollection) tuberculosis. His names, Alfred Edwin, were perhaps inspired or derived from WGRA’s father (Alfred George Archer) and from OEA’s brother (Albert Edwin Reed) whose commercial success in the paper industry was probably already well known within the family; (ii) the second eldest boy, Ernie, was by the time of the 1891 census already (and possibly had been for some time) working in his Uncle Albert Edwin’s paper mill in Dartford, Kent. Possibly Ernest Albert’s second name (Albert) represented a second tribute to the illustrious entrepreneurial paper-making uncle, supplemental to Teddy’s - we’ll probably never know; (iii) so William, the third eldest boy (and sixth child overall) was thus by the time of the 1891 census when he was aged 12, the eldest boy at home; and (iv) his (two years) younger brother Bert, and Charles became the only other two living boys in a family of 11 (born) children in the UK when Percy died in a tramcar accident in about 1899, by which time Ernest had gone, I think, to Holland; (v) of course William was in Holland until 1900, and perhaps it was the death of Percy which was another important factor in deciding him to come back to the UK; (vi) ie out of 6 boys amongst 11 children, 2 died young, one went abroad, and of the remaining 3, one became rich by inheritance, one worked for the Thames Conservancy, and of the other (Charles) little is yet known, except that I believe he lived at least latterly, in Devon;
Question: William lived in Oxford most of his life, but was his family and were his siblings ‘Oxford’ people?
William himself was born in Shillingford, and lived the first eight or so years of his life there, before his father was appointed to Oxford in the Revenue’s excise work, in 1886 (see AGA’s cv);
So WGRA lived in Shillingford from 1878 until 1886, when he was aged 8 years – hence my recollection of WGRA telling me of the days of his rides on a motorbike from Shillingford to Oxford with a copy of the “Times’ stuffed up his jumper to keep him warm, when he was working for Mr Blake, can scarcely be right;
Then he lived in Oxford at 7 Tackley Place until he went to Holland (6 years before he returned in about 1900) in about 1894 for about 6 years, then returned, married in 1902 and worked for Mr Blake in Oxford until 1919, and then inherited his Uncle Jim’s share of Archer Cowley & Co and worked at Park End Street and Pembroke Street for the rest of his life;
So WGRA spent all but 8 + 6 = 14 years of his life in Oxford, and his sons Arthur and Fred worked the whole of their lives, as far as I know, in Oxford; contrariwise, when WGRA married in 1902 at the age of 23 he had lived in Oxford only 9 of those 23 years, 8 being at Shillingford and 6 in Holland, and even of those 9 years in Oxford, only 2 were as an adult, the other 7 being as a child and young teenager at 8 to 15;
But WGRA’s father, Alfred George, though born in Oxford, lived and worked in Oxford only from 1886 until retirement and died there in 1913. AGA spent his working life in various other places including Wells, Rothwell, and Shillingford;
And as for WGRA’s siblings, of the boys:
(i) Alfred Edward died young before he ever had a job;
(ii) Ernest emigrated to Holland and apparently never came back, except on visits;
(iii) Herbert (Bert) worked for the Thames Conservancy in Tilehurst;
(iv) Percy John (John) died in a cycle/tramcar accident in Leeds in about 1899 while training to be an electrician; and
(v) Charles married and worked (at least latterly) in Devon;
As for WGRA’s sisters:
a) Rose who never married spent most if not all of her life in Oxford, perhaps much of it running the home in St Margaret’s Road where she looked after her grandfather Reed, Edward Reed, in his latter years;
b) Lena was widowed a year or two after marrying in the early 1900s, and may well have lived in Bournemouth (a place with connections with her husband);
c) Bertha, Kate and Blanche all married and moved away from Oxford, I believe – details to be verified;
So, William and Rose were indeed the only ones of the whole family to stay in Oxford, and did so on account of commitments tying them to Oxford itself. And, as indeed was the case with Alfred George himself, the norm was to leave the home town according to the requirements of work/training for work, or marriage. When I grew up in Oxford in the 1940s, Grandpa William and his sister (‘Aunty Rose’) were the only two members of the Archer family of that generation whom I got to know (for obvious reasons), though at the time I had no idea that they were members of an eleven-strong family in the past;
So, when FGBA and AWA spent the most of their working lives in with Archer Cowley & Co in Oxford they were following to some extent the pattern set by their father, but even he had more variety than they did, as he worked for his first 6 years for his uncle Albert in Holland and then for his ‘father in law’ and ‘uncle’, George Blake in his furniture shop for a full 19 or so years until 1919, before changing direction and moving into Uncle James’s furniture removals business at the age of 41- only 24 years short of the (now) normal retirement age of 65. But there he remained as a director of the business for most of the remaining 50 years of his life, while his sons did the day-to-day work of managing and running the business; so
When none of WGRA’s grandchildren (such as me or my brothers or cousins) opted to go into the AC & Co business, but decided to take education and training for other things in life and to live elsewhere than Oxford according to life’s opportunities, it was completely consistent with what WGRA had done himself ie to look around him at the opportunities and to take the most promising, including turning down (or not going along with or possibly being turned down for) the option of working with his very successful Uncle Albert Edwin Reed (his mother’s brother) in Holland;
Moreover, it is most likely that WGRA would himself have turned down an offer to work (for Archer Cowley & Co) in a situation such as was available to his grandsons, namely in a firm where at best they would, like their fathers, be one of many family directors, all drawing income (whether earned or not) from the returns of the firm, which, though modestly profitable, was not capable of supporting so many incomes;
WGRA himself, when he joined his uncle James’s firm had inherited the means to buy out Messrs Cowley and Rippington, and promptly proceeded to do so. Such would not have been an option for WGRA’s grandsons. The only reason why WGRA was able to obtain sole control of the business was that Uncle James had squirrelled-away such a vast sum as, when bequeathed to WGRA, gave him the means to make offers to Mack Cowley and Richard Rippington that they could not refuse – taking account (no doubt) of what the partnership/ business documentation likewise provided. So….
The ‘world’ of the James Archer business at Pembroke Street and Park End Street amounted to an almost unbelievable opportunity that WGRA had seized when, by accident of circumstances, it all came his way in the 1920s. It entailed abandoning, because he could not do both, his skilfully-stage-managed opportunity to be his father-in-law’s beneficiary in respect of the George Blake house-furnishing empire. To that latter opportunity WGRA had devoted 19 years of his working life including marrying George Blake’s ‘adopted’ (but not in law) ‘daughter’ (and niece) Elizabeth Gilder, and giving the second child (my father) of that marriage the full names of ‘George Blake’, after his first name, Frederick, not to mention (probably) making a success of his position (in due course) as ‘House furnisher’s manager’ in George Blake’s shop in Little Clarendon Street/St Giles;
But the inheritance from Uncle James was presumably a certainty, and it was on offer, whereas the one from George Blake was only a possibility in 1919 when James Archer made his approach to his nephew WGRA;
The news that WGRA was quitting the George Blake empire must have come as nothing less than an earthquake to George Blake himself, taking into account the fact that George Blake’s lack of a son to inherit must have been a constant background factor in his long-term business planning;
WGRA’s career plans had been:
a) office boy to George Blake: 1893/4;
b) commercial clerk at his Uncle Albert Edwin Reed’s ‘Papierfabriek’ in Raamsdonk, Holland: 1894/1900;
c) teacher (per 1901 census return);
d) (married Elizabeth Gilder in 1902), then commercial clerk, leading to ‘House Furnisher’s Manager’ up to 1919; (added 25.3.2014): on re-reading the above it seems now obvious to me that: (i) WGRA didn’t get on well enough in NL to pursue that beyond 1900, so he came home, possibly with the intention of re-joining Mr Blake, but perhaps that was not possible at first and so in 1901 he was perhaps temporarily employed as a teacher; (iii) but in 1902 he re-joined Mr Blake and married Mr Blake’s daughter Elizabeth and until 1919 pursued that career successfully, even naming his second son “George Blake” in tribute. It was a very simple and effective strategy, and had the definite possibility of making him a rich man when George Blake died;
Note: the effect of making his sons and daughters directors of Archer Cowley & Co had the effect of keeping the family together more than it might otherwise have been – and to some extent it kept the family based in Oxford.
So what is the answer to the question posed above: was WGRA’s family and were his siblings ‘Oxford people’? Answer: WGRA made his family to some extent ‘Oxford-based’ by means of the AC&Co directorships, but as to WGRA’s siblings, they were almost entirely not Oxford people because many of them were not born there and they did not live there for much of their lives. Most of WGRA’s siblings moved away from Oxford, as I, his grandson, have, for reasons of marriage, or work, or simply to see more of the world;
Education: (i) Nothing definite known. Have never heard this discussed, and never thought to ask about it myself. Perhaps he attended the Oxford High School (for boys), as he sent his son Fred (pba’s father) there, and possibly Arthur too, but this is purely guesswork (pba); (pba 23 June 2003); (ii) (Per Oxford Mail article): his elder brother Ernest was: “Educated at the old Oxford Wesleyan Day School in New Inn Hall Street, then presided over by the redoubtable Joseph Richardson, one of the outstanding schoolmasters of his generation....”, so perhaps that is likely to have been where William also was sent;
Married:
Elizabeth Gilder (died 1938) (per FGBA’s manuscript notes sheet WGRA/ms);
This first marriage was in 1902 (from pba’s manuscript cv sheet prepared in early 1990s from “family data”);
Mary Kate Ray (1943, per Gill’s family tree data) after Elizabeth Gilder’s death in 1938, I think. MKR was WGRA’s daughters’ schoolteacher at Penrhos private school at Colwyn Bay. MKR survived WGRA by at least a year or two;
(11.4.2009: appears I may not yet have ordered WGRA’s marriage certificate. Would be of interest to see whether he is still, in 1902, the ‘schoolteacher’ mentioned in the census of 1901, or whether he has moved-on to the ‘commercial clerk’ that is entered on the birth certificates of his sons Arthur (1903) and Frederick (1905) – that description being succeeded on that of his first daughter Nora by ‘House furnisher’s manager’;
Children:
Arthur William: born 5th November 1903 at 64 Kingston Road, St Giles (per birth certificate); died 30th September 1977 (per FGBA’s manuscript notes sheet WGRA/ms). (Age 73, pba); (pba 23 June 2003). Birth certificate ordered 7.10.08. Note birth certificate indicates father as ‘William George Reed Archer (ie names in full) whose occupation is: ‘Commercial Clerk’, and he signs as ‘WG Archer of 64 Kingston Road, St Giles. The mother is indicated as ‘Elizabeth Emily (not Emma) Archer formerly Gilder’
Frederick George Blake: born 11th September 1905; (per FGBA’s manuscript notes sheet WGRA/ms) at 64 Kingston Road (per birth certificate), and died 1st May 1991, age 85, pba); (pba 23 June 2003). Birth certificate ordered 7.10.08. Father again signs as ‘WG Archer’ of occupation ‘Commercial Clerk’ and Fred’s mother is indicated as ‘Elizabeth Emily’ (not Emma) Archer;
Nora Emma Rose: born 7th June1908; (per FGBA’s manuscript notes sheet WGRA/ms) at 64 Kingston Road, St Giles, Oxford (per birth certificate); died xx June 2001, age 93, pba; (pba 23 June 2003). Birth certificate ordered 7.10.08, and it shows this child registered as ‘Emma Nora Rose’ (not Nora Emma Rose), whose mother is (for the first time on these birth certificates) Elizabeth Emma (not Emily) Archer, formerly Gilder, and whose father is indicated as being of occupation ‘House Furnisher’s Manager’ and he signs as ‘Wm. G. Archer’ of 64 Kingston Road;
Elizabeth Gladys (twin of Olive Helena): born 7 am (birth certificate) 25.01.1914 at 64 Kingston Road, St Giles, Oxford, whose father’s profession and address are shown as: ‘House furnisher’s manager’ and 64 Kingston Road, (date of birth complies with pba’s notes on Paul Bennett’s address at the funeral of his mother [Olive Helena]); and Olive Helena died 11th February 1981 (per FGBA’s manuscript notes sheet WGRA/ms), age 67 pba); (pba 23 June 2003). Birth certificate ordered 5.10.08, and it also shows Olive Helena’s mother as ‘Elizabeth Emma Archer, formerly Gilder’;
Olive Helena (twin of Elizabeth Gladys): date of birth: 25th January 1914 (per pba notes on Paul Bennett’s address at her funeral), birth certificate data shows birth as at 7.10 am on 25.01.1914 ie after twin, Elizabeth Gladys, and died xx April 2003; age 89. (pba 23 June 2003). Birth certificate ordered 5.10.08, and of course the data on the child’s mother is consistent with that of Elizabeth Gladys;
Occupation:
(Word missing, must be): 'Employed' at five shillings per week, June 1893- 1894, (source does not say for which firm, presumably this was Mr Blake’s furniture business, pba, and this would fit with my own personal recollections of little stories which Grandpa used to tell me about asking Mr Blake for a rise, and what a hard time Mr Blake gave him, in terms of wages or wage rises expressed in (very small numbers of) shillings). (Added 28.8.2014): This latter little story may be revealing, that WGRA went to some trouble to tell his grandson an anecdote about hard times in his teenage years, whereas he might have told him about the history of the firm (AC & Co) that he later acquired and turned into a family (meaning WGRA’s family) business. Well, well, perhaps (as a grandpa myself) I can see why he did it: 'a nice simple moral lesson for the boy’, that life can be hard. True indeed. (pba).
Then left and went to Holland for holiday (F.G.B. Archer says for 2 years, at invitation of Albert E. Reed, brother of Olive Emma Reed); ie visited his Uncle’s paper factory(ies) [papier fabrik] in the Netherlands around the ages of 19/20/21 for a period of at least a year or two (pba recollection of matters seen and heard in relation to family records), and learned that business; (pba 23 June 2003);
(from FGBA 30th December1989), he went to Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brooks University) Dutch classes in his latter years simply to show off his Dutch from the turn of the century (about 60 years earlier);
From the 1901 census: he was a son, of employment status: worker, and his profession or occupation was: “schoolteacher”. This is not consistent with anything else known about him, and must presumably have been just a temporary job, or (perhaps more likely) simply his then current job on the night of the census in 1901, after returning from Holland;
Admitted freeman 9th March 1900;
From FGBA’s birth certificate, WGRA was a “Commercial Clerk” at the date of FGBA’s birth on 11th September 1905;
Worked for Mr George Blake in the latter’s large new and second-hand furniture shop in Oxford for some years on returning from the Netherlands, and possibly before that also (pba recollection of matters seen and heard in relation to family records); (pba 23 June 2003). Note in pba’s manuscript cv data sheet from the early 1990s, says 1900 to July 1919 was house furnisher with George Blake & Co. The birth certificates for twin daughters Elizabeth Gladys and Olive Helena show that William put himself down in January 1914 as ‘House Furnisher’s Manager’, and that is the latest information as to his ‘profession’ that is likely to be available until the 1921 census becomes available in 2021, when I am aged 80!
July 1st 1919 became partner with Cowley and Rippington in James Archer’s business when James Archer retired as landlord, and became sole owner of the premises in 1933. “And in 1944 made (it a) Private Company and self Gov.(sic) Director.”
Offered partnership by his Uncle James Archer in the latter’s carrier business, and accepted same, and left George Blake and his business (pba recollection of matters seen and heard in relation to family records), and went to work with his Uncle, and then spent the rest of his life working in that business (until retirement); (pba 23 June 2003);
Archer Cowley & Co was founded by James Archer in 1857. At the time when WGRA was working for Mr Blake, James Archer’s partners were Rippington and Cowley. WGRA was invited into the partnership when James Archer was about to retire. When James Archer died he left his share of the partnership to WGRA who (my earlier note says) bought out Cowley and Rippington. Mr Cowley lived at Abingdon and drove back and forth in a bull-nosed Morris – including lunch time.(pba 23rd June, from manuscript notes).
Lived:
Oxford all his life, apart (pba 23 June 2003) from the 6 years (according to WGRA’s own notes) spent in the Netherlands, (pba 23 June 2003), and (pba: 25.10.09) his early years at Shillingford;
Born at Shillingford, (a house which I believe Gwen, GMA, said can be seen from the main road through Shillingford), WGRA then presumably moved with the family to Oxford in 1886/7 (aged 8 or 9) to the new home at 7 Tackley Place, and then perhaps (pba 23 June 2003), he lived at:
Clearly he lived at 64 Kingston Road, a semi-detached house, (photo taken 2006) as from at least soon after his marriage in 1902, as his children were all born there, according to the birth certificates. This is the sort of house you would expect him to be able to afford, perhaps, at that stage in life, taking into account his position as Mr Blake’s assistant in his furniture shop during most of the first two decades of the 20th century. However, then, things changed radically for WGRA, merely because his uncle James Archer died childless, and WGRA moved, without any other action on his part into the world of the affluent of North Oxford, at least so far as the house he lived in, from at least the mid-1920s. (pba: 27.1.2009) I have a recollection that my Aunt Nora (NERA) told me (but I cannot find that I have it transcribed on this computer – perhaps, hopefully, it is a hand-written record awaiting transcription) that the first day that she lived at 130 Banbury Road was the day of her School Certificate exams at Milham Ford school, and that she came home to a wonderful surprise. I cannot remember whether that surprise was the move itself (surely not something that parents would keep from a teenager?), or something nice in her own bedroom. Perhaps it was that room itself which charmed her. Anyway, presumably she was aged about 15/16/17 and her elder brother Fred was about 18/19/20 and probably still working for Mr Blake in his furniture shop. So perhaps day 1 at 130 Banbury Road was about ‘summer 1923/4/5’ (based on Nora’s ages of 15/16/17).
Kelly’s 1903 Directory of Oxford, Oxfordshire, page 222, shows James Archer living at 320 Banbury Road, about 4 houses from Hernes Road; (note that on same page is Robert James Grubb, living at 130 Banbury Road, later to be bought (in the 1920s) by James Archer’s nephew, William George Reed Archer, with the fortune left to him by James Archer. Note (17.2.09): I wonder whether this RJ Grubb is in any way connected with the Richard Grubb, corn factor and meal merchant, whose premises were the subject of attack and rioting in 1867 – see “Images of Victorian Oxford”, page 147 (the ‘bread riots of November 1867);
Acacia Lodge on the Banbury Road before moving (to?) …. (pba 23 June 2003). Perhaps this move was to 276 Banbury Road, which is the place of residence of WGRA given for him as “informant” on the death certificate for James Archer (died 12th October 1922); (7.10.08): (i) have ordered birth certificates for all his 5 children, and these may provide clues as to his home address at those times in 1903/5/8/14. They show his address in those years (after marriage) as 64 Kingston Road; (ii) will see if Google Maps can locate 276 Banbury Road. Yes, it shows it quite clearly at some distance North (as it would be) of the location of Somerville, close to the (now) junction with Marston Ferry Road;
Somerville at 130 Banbury Road. (pba 23 June 2003), from about the mid-1920s; Note (pba.27.1.09): WGRA clearly did not sell his house at 64 Kingston Rd, when he moved to 130 Banbury Road, because he later rented it to his son Fred, FGBA, when he married, and Fred and Gwen lived there for some little time before buying their own house (with Fred’s inheritance from Mr Blake) in Headington. Indeed it is not surprising that WGRA did not sell 64KR, as he had no need to since the funds he had come into from his Uncle Jim made him, presumably, entirely financially independent.
In about 1954 he moved from Somerville to Cotswold at 19 Sandfield Road, and died there. (pba 23 June 2003)
So, where did he live when, and who else was living nearby?
Born 7.10.1878 at Shillingford, about 10 or 12 miles south of Oxford on the road to Reading, two or three miles south of Wallingford, and close to Wittenham Clumps;
The family lived at Shillingford (south of Oxford, only a little more than twice as far out as Headington, for example) for some years until (in 1886) Alfred George and Olive Emma Archer moved in to Oxford itself (dates to be found in due course), when AGA’s work with The Revenue took him there;
So, for the ‘Shillingford years’, probably the “AGA/OER” family was relatively isolated from other Archer family members (as compared with the extreme proximity of the families actually living in Oxford itself). But this was no more than had been the case in previous periods (such as at Rothwell in Northants, and elsewhere);
During those ‘Shillingford’ years:
a) there were several ‘Archer’ families living in Oxford itself; (these need to be identified with ‘bands of years’ as to where they lived and when);
b) AGA/OER were thus in Berkshire (which extends north right up to Folly Bridge);
c) The Reeds were in the West Country;
d) The Gilders were in Oxford – ditto, probably, the related families of Harwood, Blake, etc;
e) and so on. Probably it will be useful, in order to be able to sort out this ‘who lived where and when’ to change the simple ‘Lived’ heading in the CVs, to ‘Where he/she lived and when’ and to include in census results something on the lines of (at the end of each decade’s census list): ‘No. of family members resident in (eg) 1881’ so that the numbers living (eg in Oxford) in decades can be assessed;
Thus the AGA/OER branch of the Archer family (which is my, pba’s, branch) was not an Oxford family between the date of AGA leaving home (perhaps in his late teens, well before he married, when he started training for his job with the Revenue/Excise) and coming back to Oxford (still with the Revenue) in 1886, which was 27 years before AGA died in 1913;
Census dates: (per Nick Barratt’s ‘Encyclopedia of Genealogy’):
Sunday 6 June 1841;
Sunday 30 March 1851;
Sunday 7 April 1861;
Sunday 2 April 1871;
Sunday 3 April 1881;
Sunday 5 April 1891; and
Sunday 31 March 1901;
Census results for WGRA (1881/1891/1901):
1881 Census:
Location: Oxfordshire, Warborough district;
Civil Parish of Warborough, in the Rural Sanitary District of Wallingford Union; Ecclesiastical Parish of Warborough; (no mention of Shillingford as such, except in the ‘where born’ data for the sons and daughters. There is nothing entered at all in the columns for ‘Road, Street, and Number or name of house’. I will look in previous/ subsequent sheets to see if they shed any light on this question. Yes, the immediately preceding sheet simply shows ‘Shillingford’ in the address column;
Head of house: Alfred George Archer, head, married, age 33, Inland (can’t read next word, which is an insert, and looks like ‘Bisnat’. Certainly it doesn’t look like ‘Revenue’) Officer (Excise), born Oxford;
Olive E. Archer, wife, married, age 32, born Fowey, Cornwall;
Olive R Archer, daughter, unmarried, age 9, scholar, born Rothwell, Northamptonshire;
Alfred E. Archer, son, unmarried, scholar, age 8, born Rothwell, Northamptonshire;
Ernest (no other initial) Archer, son, unmarried, scholar, age 7, born Wells, Somerset;
Helena E. Archer, daughter, unmarried, scholar, age 5, born Wells, Somerset;
Bertha O. Archer, daughter, unmarried, age 3, born Shillingford, Oxon;
William G.R. (only person in whole family with 4 initials) Archer, son, unmarried, age 2, born Shillingford, Oxon;
Herbert John Archer, son, age 9 months, born Shillingford, Oxon; and
Ann Frazier, servant (domestic), unmarried, aged 16, born Cholsey, Berkshire;
So, from the above birth data, it appears that the family was in Rothwell, Northants, when Olive Rose was born in about 1872 and likewise when Alfred Edward (Edwin?) was born in 1873, but the family had moved back to Wells, Somerset by the time Ernest was born in about 1874, and was still there two years later in 1876 when Helena E arrived, but had moved on to Shillingford, Oxon, by the time Bertha O arrived, two years later in 1878 (query: (15.4.09) wasn’t WGRA born in 1878 rather than Bertha?), and were still there for the arrival of William in 1879 and Herbert in (about)1880/1;
Number of family members resident at Shillingford in 1881: Nine;
1891 Census (the family home in Oxford):
Administrative county of Oxford, civil parish of St Giles; Municipal Ward: ‘North’, Urban Sanitary District: Oxford; Town: Oxford; Parliamentary Borough of Oxford; Ecclesiastical District of St. Philip & St James;
Address: 7 Tackley Place, as 1 above;
Alfred G. Archer, head, married, age 42, Inland Revenue Officer, Employed, born Oxford, Oxfordshire;
Olive E. Archer, wife, married, age 42, (no ‘occupation’ shown) born Fowey, Cornwall;
Olive R. Archer, daughter, single, age 19, (no ‘occupation’ shown), born Rothwell, Northants;
Helena E. Archer, daughter, single, age 15, (no ‘occupation’ shown), born Wells, Somerset;
Bertha O. Archer, daughter, age 13, scholar, born Shillingford;
William G.R. Archer, son, age 12, scholar, born Shillingford;
Herbert J. Archer, son, age 10, scholar, born Shillingford;
Francis K. Archer, daughter, age 8, scholar, born Shillingford; (pba/25.6.09: so the family was apparently still living at Shillingford when FKA was born in 1883);
John P. Archer, son, age 6, scholar, born Shillingford; (pba/25.6.09: so the family was apparently still living at Shillingford when JPA was born in 1885);
Charles J. Archer, son, age 4, born Oxford; (pba/25.6.09: so the family was apparently not still living at Shillingford, but had moved to Tackley Place, Oxford, when CJA was born in 1887);
Blanche A. Archer, daughter, age 6 months, born Oxford;
Edward Reed, Father-in-law, age 80, widower, Superannuated (Retired) Revenue Officer, born Bovey Tracey, Devonshire;
So, from the above birth dates of the children, it appears that the family moved from Shillingford to Oxford between the births of John Percy and Charles James ie between 6 and 4 years before 1891 ie between 1885 and 1887;
Number of family members resident at Tackley Place, Oxford on Sunday 5th April, 1891: eleven, including Edward Reed (father-in-law);
1891 Census – brother Ernest, a lodger in Dartford, Kent:
17 Mount Pleasant Terrace, Dartford, Kent;
Harry Phillips, head, married, age 44, Carpenter and Joiner, Employed, born Ipswich, Suffolk;
Harriet Phillips, wife, married, age 50, no profession or occupation shown (of course); and
Ernest A. Archer, lodger, Single, age 17, Learning Paper Manufacturing, born Wells, Somerset;
Next door, at No. 16 Mount Pleasant Terrace: (i) David Smith, head, married, age 54, Paper Maker’s Engineer, Employed, born Forfarshire, Scotland; (ii) Elizabeth Smith, wife, married, age 50, born Midlothian, Scotland; and (iii) Emily J. Smith, daughter, Single, age 19, born Midlothian, Scotland;
And a few doors along the street at No. 14 Mount Pleasant Terrace, lodging at the Russell household, is George Austin, Single, age 18, ‘Labourer at Mill’ (presumably the Paper Mill), born London; and in the next street, at
4 Chalk Row, lives Joseph Hill, married, age 34, Boiler Maker (presumably/perhaps at the Paper Mill), born Dartford, Kent; and in the same street (as Ernest Archer), at
No. 10 Mount Pleasant Terrace, is George Chalkley, Son, Single, age 16, who is ‘Machine Boy, Paper Mill’; and at
No. 13 Mount Pleasant Terrace, is Herbert Hogg, Son, Single, age 16, who is ‘Paper Maker’s Apprentice’, born Walworth, London;
In other words, Ernest Archer was lodging, apparently, near to the paper mill, and in a community where a significant number of people were employed at the mill;
1901 Census re WGRA in St. Giles, Oxford:
Alfred George Archer, head, married, age 52, worker, born Oxford;
Olive Emma Archer, wife, married, age 53, born Fowey, Cornwall;
Olive R. Archer, daughter, single, age 28, no occupation shown, born Rothwell, Northants;
William GR Archer, son, single, age 22, worker, schoolteacher, born Shillingford, Oxon;
Herbert J. Archer, son, single, age 20, House Furnisher’s assistant, worker, born Shillingford, Oxon;
Frances K. Archer, daughter, single, age 18, no occupation shown, born Shillingford, Oxon;
John P. Archer, son, single, age 16, no occupation shown, born Shillingford, Oxon;
Charles J. Archer, son, single, age 14, born Oxford, Oxon;
Blanche A. Archer, daughter, single, age 10, born Oxford, Oxon
Comments by pba: (i) WGRA has been back from Holland two years and is clearly a school teacher in 1901; (ii) his two-years-younger brother Herbert is already working for Mr Blake as a ‘House Furnisher’s Assistant’, (iii) elder brother Ernest is still, of course, not at the family home in Oxford, presumably being still in Dartford, or having moved to Holland. I will see if I can find Herbert in Dartford in the 1901 census; answer: no, the only slightly relevant Ernest Archer I can find is aged 2 (sic), the son of James Archer, worker age 34 and born at Greenwich, Kent, and who, is, very coincidentally, Paper Maker, living at 8 Dulwich Road, Dartford, Kent; so (iv) WGRA has not yet apparently at all set out on the any career remotely relevant to what he did in later life. In fact his younger brother Herbert (who was to work for the Thames Conservancy) was in 1901 ahead of him in terms of working for Mr Blake’s house-furnishing business; (v) I will have a look at the above ‘James Archer’ born in Greenwich, Kent in 1901 minus 34 = 1867 in the 1871 census (age 4) to see if by chance he might be a cousin of Ernest Archer; (vi) Well, in 1871 there is a James S. Archer age 5 living in Islington, London, Middlesex, with (his parents) Albert and Elizabeth M. Archer both aged 39 and born in London, Middlesex – doesn’t seem to be relevant to any other Archers known to me – will check for the names of Alfred George’s siblings (which of course did include James Archer the founder of the business); (vii) answer: no, the only sibling remotely relevant is James Archer himself, born in 1836, admittedly only 1 year before this Albert Archer, and who must have had London connections to meet Fanny Porter, his wife, there, but who clearly is not this person – there is no relevant Albert Archer at all. The coincidental ‘other Archer’ at the paper mill in Dartford in 1901 must have been just that: a coincidence, and presumably a witness to the large size of that operation;
Number of family members resident at Tackley Place, St Giles, Oxford on Sunday 31st March 1901: nine;
1901 Census re elder sister Bertha in Bournemouth:
122 Poole Road, Branksome, Bournemouth;
Albert E. Whiteley, Head, Married, age 29, Draper, employer, born Wakefield, Yorks;
Bessie J. Whiteley, wife, married, age 24, born Wherwell, Hants;
Annie Quickley, assistant, single, age 39, Head Dressmaker, worker, born Scotby, Cumberland;
Bertha O. Archer, assistant, single, age 23, draper’s assistant, single, worker, born Shillingford, Oxfordshire;
Elsie R. Seymour, assistant, worker, single, age 25, draper’s assistant, born St. Pancras, London;
Notes: perhaps the Bournemouth connection with Bertha explains why ‘Aunty Lena’ went to live in the Bournemouth region (at ‘Therapeia’ a Methodist retirement home, as I recollect) in her latter years. If Lena kept in touch with her sister Bertha and her family throughout Lena’s life (though that was never known to me, nor was the name Bertha ever mentioned as far as I can recall), that might well explain it. There must have been much nearer Methodist retirement homes, though perhaps the attraction might simply have been Bournemouth and the quiet life and the sea.
Other biographical details:
Lived from 1878 through the latter 22 years of the Victorian era (42 years after her accession in 1836, was it?), through the years of the railway boom and the industrial boom of the 4th quarter of the 19th Century; (pba 23 June 2003)
On through the 10 or so years of the Edwardian era (1901 to 1910) and the last pre-war flowering of British Empire building, though part of this time must have been spent in Holland; (pba 23 June 2003)
On through the first World War (1914 – 1918), in which William was not directly involved (nor were his sons), and the reign of George 5th to 1935, with the depression of the 1930s, though the middle 1920s were for William Archer a time of unparalleled acquisition as his uncle James Archer died in the middle 1920s and left to his nephew William (who by then had taken over James Archer’s share of his business: Archer & Co.) the residue of his estate, amounting to around sixty-thousand pounds (the entire estate, see the will copy, which I have), which was a very large sum, and made William Archer a rich man, and enabled him to buy Somerville House; (pba 23 June 2003)
On through the reign of George 6th (1935 to 1952) and the second World War, and the post-war recovery years (1940s and 1950s), and well into the reign of Elizabeth 2nd, by the time of his death in 1969. In 1953 and Elizabeth’s coronation in June of that year, he had a television set, and we all (pba’s parents and brother Michael, I assume) went down to Somerville House to see this major event. I cannot recall him referring to all the previous coronations in his life, though no doubt he probably did; (pba 23 June 2003)
The Great War 1914 – 1918:
A quote from George Orwell’s ‘Inside the Whale’, published 1940: “But after all, the war of 1914-18 was only a heightened moment in an almost continuous crisis. At this date it hardly even needs a war to bring home to us the disintegration of our society, and the increasing helplessness of all decent people.”
WGRA did not fight in the Great War. Indeed the only person in the family who seems to have done so was Percy Gilder, who was killed on the Somme battlefield – see elsewhere.
In October 1914, WGRA was 36, and thus not at all too old (eventually anyway) to have to fight. Initially of course the expeditionary force was manned entirely by volunteers. Later however the question of conscription arose, and WGRA would have been nearer to 40 and thus probably ‘a bit on the old side’, but certainly not ‘too old’ to fight.
(From the Guardian, May 17, 2008: ‘My ‘coward’ grandfather, by Francis Beckett: (para 2): He had three small daughters, which saved him from conscription, and his attempt to volunteer was turned down in 1914 because he was short-sighted. But in 1916 as he walked home to south London from his office, a woman gave him a white feather (an emblem of cowardice). He enlisted the next day. By that time they cared nothing for short sight. They just wanted a body to stop a shell, which Rifleman James Cutmore duly did in February 1918, dying of his wounds on March 28’.
And at that stage, even by the end of the war, WGRA had not (until 1919) joined James Archer in his carrier/removals business, in which he became self-employed and thus exempted (like Frank Penfold) from military service. Up to 1919, it appears that WGRA was an employee of his father-in-law, Mr George Blake, in the latter’s furniture and home-furnishing store in Oxford. (pba.23.2.09). Perhaps it was significant that as from 1914 and the start of the war, WGRA had a very young family of 5 children aged from just born to 11 years. Though Frank Penfold also had a young-ish family and that clearly did not seem enough to protect him from the likelihood of war service, as he took the significant step of borrowing the funds needed to buy himself into a business, so as to be ‘self-employed’
WGRA’s business life:
WGRA, on acquiring James Archer’s interest in his business, set about turning it, from a purely business enterprise into the focus for the business-interest of the family for the rest of his life;
He bought out Messrs Cowley and Rippington, brought his sons in in management roles, and likewise his daughters in directorship roles, while he, in his ‘Governing Director’ role (question: did this continue until he died in 1969?) was involved in the management almost until the business was sold in about 1969;
So, WGRA spent almost 50 years running, one way and another, the business that he, effectively, acquired from his uncle, in 1919;
Whereas I (pba) see it as important to allow others to ‘have their place in the sun’ when the time comes, presumably WGRA saw it as only natural to continue in his managerial/ governing director role long after he was 60 (in 1938), and 65 (in 1943). He in fact continued his involvement for another 25 or so years. No doubt he may not have got involved in the day-to-day running of the business in latter years, but I certainly don’t rule it out, from what I know of him. And in any case it would have been difficult for his sons to do much about it as his presence was continuous throughout their working lives, so there was no natural opportunity for them to make a change, or indeed to stage a ‘palace coup’;
A further thought (18.4.2009): a) WGRA joined his uncle, James Archer, in the Archer & Co/Archer, Cowley & Co. business in 1919 when invited to do so by his uncle; b) prior to that time, as far as I know, WGRA had shown no interest whatsoever in his uncle James’s business – he had spent 6 years looking at the Dutch paper business, followed by at least a short while as a teacher, according to the 1901 census; c) then he married, and (whether or not at once, or with other jobs in between, we don’t know) went to work for his father-in-law, George Blake, in his furniture business as a “commercial clerk” and later as “a house furnisher’s manager”. Apparently this continued until 1919 when d) he was made aware of ‘Uncle Jim’s offer to him of his place in his (Uncle Jim’s) business, and, as I say, until then WGRA had apparently had no interest whatever in that business; but e) from then onwards, and even more so from about 1925 when Uncle Jim’s will became effective, WGRA’s whole life was centred around his Uncle Jim’s business; and f) even after he was well-past normal retirement age (60 to 65) he continued to go into the office and (no doubt) to exert his influence on the decisions made there by his sons Fred and Arthur – until about 1969 when he was about 90 years old; so h) arguably he treated the business simply as a retirement activity, and if so, this easily explains why, for example, he did not see any need to preserve (by making a ‘reserve copy’) the business’s scrap-book. After all, the business was just a business – quite useful as a means for keeping him and his sons out of mischief, but as such not particularly interesting; and i) leading onwards from this thought is the fact that when it came to looking for someone within the family to take on the business in around 1969 just before it was sold to Cantays, the absence of anyone to do so (including me, pba), corresponded more or less exactly with his own (WGRA’s ) position 50+ years beforehand, and thus was not at all surprising or remarkable. I need to check this if possible against the minutes of AC&Co’s board meetings, though these seems not to contain any material of this sort;
In other words, the consequence of WGRA’s acquisition of James Archer’s share of his business was to put WGRA suddenly into a category of affluence which was completely beyond presumably his expectations, but also totally outside his sphere of actual experience or interest (apart from the overlap of furniture removing with furniture making and selling). And WGRA then made at least a good competent job of taking onwards effectively this most valuable asset and using it for the next 50 years as a source of income and interest. And the ‘interest’ aspect of it fits very well with the comment I have heard somewhere (not actually cousin Paul’s at his mother’s funeral, which I have checked) that the AC & Co business was just “a toy for WGRA and his sons to play with” (or something like that) ie meaning that it did not need to be particularly profitable. But I can hardly believe that, as it certainly needed to be reasonably profitable in order to pay the salaries not only of the staff but also of the six directors of the company;
In brief, the ‘world’ of Somerville, 130 Banbury Road, of which I slowly became aware in the middle-to-late 1940s, was one which WGRA had occupied, then, for about 20 years, it had come to him ‘from nowhere’ ie unexpectedly from within the family on account of the childlessness of his uncle Jim’s marriage, otherwise he would have been living, like his parents and siblings, in a much more modest way, as he had done in the 1900s, 1910s, and the first half of the 1920s, for example in the semi-detached house at 64 Kingston Road, Oxford
His above average wealth had not been earned by WGRA himself, but by his uncle James, over a lifetime in the business, since 1857. Presumably James had lived economically, and preferred to save rather than to spend – a good prudent Victorian approach. His nephew clearly saw no reason not to spend and invest. And this approach clearly worked. The business clearly prospered – and WGRA lived completely beyond the means he would otherwise have been forced to adopt. And it had great consequences for others such as his grandchildren, including one Philip Archer who was later to write up his family history;
Thoughts about WGRA’s philosophy:
(pba: 11.4.2009): It occurs to me that WGRA may well have modelled his business and lifestyle objectives on what he saw of Mr Blake, the uncle and (to some extent, though probably not formally/legally so) adoptive father of his girl-friend/fiancée and wife, Elizabeth Gilder.
George Blake was very much a self-made man, who came from putting himself down in his marriage certificate (of 1872) as “Carpenter”, living at “Kings Cottage, Charles Street, St Ebbes, Oxford” to the description and address of his death certificate of 1925, in which he is “House furnisher” and lives at 184 Woodstock Road, St Giles, Oxford. Thus George Blake was married six years before WGRA was born in 1878, so when WGRA first got to know him, it may have been a little before WGRA went to Holland in about 1894 or soon after he came back in 1900, by which time Gorge Blake was well-established in the furniture business, and probably (in view of the wealth he had accumulated by 1925) had a very comfortable life style;
Thus, is seems entirely possible that WGRA’s ambition or model in his young days was to achieve what his father-in-law, Mr Blake had done;
After all, WGRA went to Holland between about 1894 and 1900, and then came back and changed direction entirely. Presumably when he went to Holland in 1894 it was then or soon became an attempt to make a start in life in the paper business of his uncle who owned the paper mill at Kaisersveer/Raamsdonk. His elder brother Ernest was over there in Holland after working in Kent for his uncle at the paper mill in Dartford. Presumably Ernie also had the intention to follow his uncle’s success in the paper business. He too, like his younger brother William, did not stay in the Reed paper empire, and moved into the Dutch motor business and stayed in Holland, having met and married a local girl. And likewise, perhaps for some reason related to that of his elder brother, that six year stint led nowhere in the paper industry for William likewise. He moved back to England in 1900 and by 1902 had married a local Oxford girl, one Elizabeth Gilder, the niece and effectively adopted daughter of George Blake.
Whether or not William knew George Blake and/or Elizabeth Gilder before coming back from Holland in 1900, I do not know. She had been living in the Blake household since (perhaps soon after) her mother died in 1882 – when WGRA was only 4 years old. So, if she, Elizabeth had been attending Walton Street Methodist chapel most of her life (which somehow seems quite likely, but I don’t actually have any evidence, I think, that she was a Methodist before she married. Perhaps I should check to see whether her parents married in the Methodist Church?), then she and WGRA would most likely have met at quite a young age, since WGRA is most likely to have been a regular attender with his ‘local preacher’ father (and all the rest of the family no doubt too). So perhaps they did know each other quite well before he went to Holland, and perhaps they wrote to each other frequently while he was away, and perhaps it was simply his love for her that pulled him back to England in 1900.
So, when WGRA came back to England in 1900, we know that in the census of 1901 he put himself down as a schoolteacher, so he didn’t immediately go into Mr Blake’s furniture business. But go into it he did, my family records indicate (not yet having seen what his entry in the 1911 census says). I must check what light WGRA’s marriage certificate sheds on this subject. From the birth certificates of his children, he is (1903 and 1905) a ‘commercial clerk’ and then (1908) a ‘house furnisher’s manager’;
So, having looked, we must assume, at the lifestyles of his ‘paper-making’ uncle or uncles (Albert and/or Albert’s brother – see Olive Emma Reed’s cv) in Holland, and that of his father-in-law George Blake, and having worked for 15 or more years perhaps, for Mr Blake, and having found him to be (according to WGRA’s stories told personally to me by him) a very hard-headed man who didn’t give a generous rise even to his son-in-law (or perhaps least of all to his son-in-law?), then suddenly things changed in 1919;
In 1919 WGRA’s ‘Uncle James’ passed on to WGRA his (Uncle James’s) share in Archer Cowley & Co, so that WGRA suddenly became transformed from being a mere employee (possibly a respected and relatively senior member of staff) to becoming a co-partner with Messrs Cowley and Rippington in a successful business that dated back to 1857;
Here, at last, as if sent from heaven, was WGRA’s chance to become as successful as Mr Blake, and indeed Uncle James. He could take on the business that Uncle James had started and run since 1857 – admittedly in recent years with the involvement of two arms-length partners, Mr Mack (or Mark) Cowley, and Mr Richard Rippington. But in recent years the business had started to run downhill somewhat (so said FGBA to me) and he, WGRA, could transform it into a successful modern firm.
And, even more significantly, WGRA could make it into a real family business for the benefit of his wife and children. This may have been what Mr Blake had done, to some extent, though not having any children of his own, it was not open to George Blake to bring his own children into the business, though no doubt he might have done the same as Uncle James in terms of bringing in his nephew (Walter Harwood) to whom he ultimately left the residue of his estate;
So WGRA bought-out (probably not until he had received Uncle James’s full estate) his co-partners Cowley and Rippington and transformed the business into what we might (with a nod to Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘South Pacific’): ‘Archer, Archer, & Archer, Archer, Archer & Archer (WGRA, his two sons and three daughters, as directors of the business);
And so it remained from whatever date WGRA’s sons Arthur and Fred became directors (later, presumably, joined by their 3 sisters, Nora, Elizabeth and Olive, as directors, but not involved in the day-to-day running of the business), until the business was sold not long before WGRA died in 1969). So WGRA remained in a directorship role in ‘his’ family business for almost 50 years from 1919. Clearly, WGRA did not share my own (pba’s) view of the merit of allowing people to have the freedom to do things their own way and thus to ‘blossom’ in life, as they (only) can when having that freedom, not to mention the sheer joy that comes from such freedom from interference and control. But of course, from his (WGRA’s) point of view, it was more a question of having something to do with his life, as for most of the latter part of his life he employed a housekeeper and a gardener, while having a wife, whereby his home and related practical aspects of his home life were taken care of. I doubt that he ever did any housework as such – why would he?
And yet, there is one inconsistency with this line of reasoning – if the Archer Cowley & Co business was so important to him, why did he not take more care to write its history and to preserve, for example, a copy of its scrapbook when the business was sold? Yes, indeed the new owners probably wanted to have that scrapbook (or at least they would have said so). But at the time when the business was passing out of the family, I would have thought that in the situation where no history of the business had been written, then to have copied the scrapbook for family history reasons would at least have filled an enormous gap. But apparently absolutely nothing was done of this sort. And thus when the new owners, Cantays, later lost the scrapbook in ‘an office move’, the entire possibility of a coherent record documented by pictures was lost forever;
Perhaps WGRA took the view that, like James Archer, it was ‘just a business’ which, once it passed outside the family was no longer of interest – just like the breweries run by the ‘John Archers’ the locations of which seem to be lost in the mists of time, so far as WGRA was concerned. Or to put it another way, perhaps WGRA had none of the sentiment that I feel about the family business that my father, his brother and their father and great uncle ran for well over 100 years from 1857;
One final thought about the sale of the business in about 1969: it was only a repetition of what had happened exactly 50 years earlier, when James Archer had no son to pass the business on to and so he handed it to his nephew, William Archer (WGRA). In 1969, the sons of the directors were not, in the end, interested to take up the reins, and so this family asset was sold and benefitted the family financially rather than in an ongoing business sense. And I suppose that WGRA may have taken the view that that was an entirely appropriate result in the end; (pba.11.4.2009);
To put it another way, WGRA’s involvement in the AC&Co business from 1919 to 1969 (approx) had the effect of delaying by 50 years the passing out of the family, of the business and the premises. During those 50 years, WGRA was directly involved in the day-to-day running of the business more or less throughout the period. The business provided a main income for himself and for his two sons, and (presumably) supplemental incomes for his 3 daughters. In this way, the business performed its function very well. It had made James Archer, a very rich man by the time he died. It went on to support William and Arthur and Fred Archer and their direct families, and to help to support Nora and Elizabeth and Olive Archer and (in Olive’s case) her family – effectively six director’s incomes isn’t bad for a business of that size.
The business was about 112 years old when it was sold to Cantays. That doesn’t seem long for it to have survived after the euphoria of the centenary of 1957 when speeches at the dinner foresaw a golden future under family ownership. But such a future required ongoing family involvement, and although Paul Bennett trained for such a career, I believe, by spending a significant period working with the removals operation of a big London department store (Harrods), for some reason he did not pursue the opportunity that arose. No doubt his Dad (my ‘Uncle Oswald’ Bennett) would have been able to advise him what the prospects in fact were, as Oswald was the firm’s accountant. I believe Paul said to me in recent-ish years that the decision was based on a realisation that the business was really only a ‘plaything’ for WGRA and his two sons – in other words, not a serious business, or (perhaps) not a serious opportunity for a career for a young man as he was then. In truth, it was clear that taking on the position would have involved taking on all sorts of complications in terms of family-member relationships, which, probably, a young man could well do without.
So, WGRA’s 50-ish years with AC & Co came to an end. Likewise, my dad’s ‘not much less than 50 years’ with the firm. His brother Arthur presumably served the firm to the end, though he joined the firm later than Fred. And the firm was sold as a going concern to the removals firm Cantays, who ran the business onwards for some years but soon decided to diversify and make use of the Park End Street site as a business site rather than to continue the name and firm of Archer Cowley & Co. PBA to do some searching (perhaps online if possible) at Companies House to see when AC & Co ceased trading as such. I may have that information from Roger Watts in the discussions I had with him in about 2006.
Perhaps WGRA took the view that the AC & Co business as such was not particularly important. It was the people that mattered. This was Nora Archer’s view as expressed to me. And probably that is right. Yes, the business had lots of goodwill in its customer base during its years of trading. And that goodwill had a commercial value that could be sold or used. And it was something to remember and be pleased about, but it was not something particularly remarkable. All businesses have some degree of goodwill. And AC & Co was no exception. There was also a splendid degree of what might be called ‘camaraderie’ between the men who worked on the vans, whom Dad knew very well, and whom Michael and I got to know somewhat from summer vacation jobs spent with the firm. But that likewise was no doubt only that which is quite common between men working together in a reasonably well-organised firm, and it is nothing to get sentimental about.
Hence, perhaps, it is not surprising that WGRA did not organise a copy of the firm’s scrapbook when Cantays said they wanted it. After all, the firm would no longer be the family firm. It might well be renamed before long. And the family members would be going on to do other things. Yes, WGRA and his two sons had spent somewhere between 125 and 150 man years working in that firm, but that was business. It produced a business result: a due profit and income. And that was that. No sentiment. No nonsense. End of story.
(Added 19.8.2016): The Archer Cowley & Co album has been found by John Chipperfield of the Oxford Mail and Sid McFarlane (formerly of AC&Co) and as from 23.7.2016 has been in my possession. This changes everything, and needs to be dealt-with thoroughly. That I shall do. However, one new thought about the question of ‘Why the AC&Co business did not continue in the family?’ is this. When WGRA acquired from his uncle James Archer the latter’s share in that business, he did so not quite ‘free of all encumbrances’ (as lawyers like to put it) but nearly-so, because he was able to ‘buy-out’ the other partners, Messrs Cowley and Rippington, and thereby do things entirely his own way. That ‘Free of all encumbrances’ is the essence of why the business was not continued in the family in the mid-20th century. The business was about as encumbered as it could be, by the other directors (and thus owners) of the business, and thus did not offer in any way the prospects which lay before WGRA when, as a 47-year-old he acquired James Archer’s share in the business. That, in essence, was the factor which WGRA needed to foresee in good time if he was to ensure that the business continued beyond his own lifetime (which in fact it did not do, in family ownership), and which, apparently, he either did not see, of chose not to do anything about. (To be continued).
Cross reference data:
Reference for this sheet: 1878/WGRA (pba 23 June 2003)
Reference for related sheets:
Somerville House, 130 Banbury Road, Oxford:
WGRA lived here from about the mid-1920s;
It is the house and household that gave me the impression of ‘an Archer empire’ which is one significant factor in inspiring me (and perhaps compelling me) to do this family history (pba.18.2.2009);
The previous owner at Somerville, before WGRA, was apparently one Robert James Grubb, who is identified above in a directory search;
I notice in “Images of Victorian Oxford” by Malcolm Graham (publisher: Oxford County Council), that there is reproduced an engraving showing a riot in Oxford, with the caption: ‘Low wages and an increase in the price of bread led to serious rioting in November 1867, when the premises of the aptly-named baker Richard Grubb were a particular target. This illustration from the Police Review shows the attack on his shop in Cornmarket Street.’ I have scanned and saved that engraving to illustrate this record.
I have also made an Ancestry search against Robert Grubb and have found him in various censuses and his birth and death data. I had expected to find that he was the son of the ‘Richard Grubb’ mentioned in the above engraving caption. He may well be, but in the censuses there is only his mother Mary Grubb, who is a widow, presumably of the aforesaid Richard Grubb, but I have not been able easily to establish this.
And why does it interest me to know about the misfortunes of the family of the previous owner of Somerville? Well, evidently those misfortunes were not significant enough to prevent the family/Richard’s son and mother from living in a very nice house in Banbury Road, Oxford, 34 years later, so it is not the misfortune aspect. No, it is the question of ‘who was WGRA?’ that I’m interested in. The fact that he moved into the house of the Grubbs shows, I suppose, that WGRA, the sixth of eleven children of Alfred George Archer, had somehow, by the age of about 47, and after spending 6 years in Holland working for his very successful Uncle Edwin (and giving that up and coming back to Oxford and marrying a local girl), and then spending a further almost 20 years working for his very successful father-in-law (and giving that up to go into the business of his Uncle James), was suddenly catapulted by his Uncle James’s will into a different world. He had been in the league of ordinary mortals, living at 64 Kingston Road, St Giles, a semi-detached home where all his five children were born. It had a nice garden and was in a pleasant area of Oxford, but it was completely in keeping with someone who lives and moves in the world of successful employees. Somerville House was something else altogether: the world of successful employers. Two acres of walled garden, entered through a stone gateway and a gravelled drive sweeping through shrubberies and mature trees to the house’s entrance portico and onwards to the rear stabling and garage area. A house with (in the 1930s when my mother first visited) room for a housekeeper (Mrs Hayes in the 1940s, I recall) and two maids, in addition to a household of two sons and three daughters, not to mention the full-time (or so I recall, but have no evidence) gardener, William Greenaway (or was it Gurden?).
So the connection with the Grubbs and their role as victims of the 1867 bread riots adds detail and perhaps some verisimilitude to the account of ‘Somerville’ and its effect on me and my life.
One other interesting fact emerging from the information about the Grubbs is that ‘Somerville’ was so-called long before WGRA lived there. I had wondered whether it was an idea WGRA had to give it that name if his daughter, Nora, went to Somerville college – which I don’t know about.
It is interesting that the Grubbs’ 1871 census, the first census after the 1867 bread riots shows them at a ‘Bakers’ shop’ at 22 Queen Street, which fits well with the caption to the engraving in “Images of Victorian Oxford” – see scanned image stored under ‘WGRA/Somerville/Grubbs’;
18.2.2009: I have now made a brief search for ‘Richard Grubb’ in Ancestry, hoping to find him in Oxford at about 1850s/60s/70s but without immediate success. Of course it may well be that the shop shown in the engraving may have been a name of a predecessor in the business and not necessarily the name of the then present proprietor;
(From pba’s manuscript notes: “A.Olive Sunday 19.3.93” ie talking to Aunty Olive on that date): “Rev. J. Edgar Noble (see photo”, it says. Which photo? Yes, I recollect that there was a photo taken at Somerville showing a minister in the garden there) “was minister at Walton Street chapel (which was pulled down in recent decades and a block of flats built on the site). There were many church gatherings at Somerville.”
Pba manuscript note dated 12.10.1992: states that ‘Brother Bernard of 130 Banbury Road, Oxford on 12.10.92 permitted me to take photos of Somerville House. I asked for any info available. He told me that No.130 had been a school (pba: Greycoats School perhaps?) and the out-house(s) a “laboratory”. See the photos I took that day, showing a very large building where the rear garden of Somerville used to be;
Pba note done 1.4.2009 (not a joke!) on typing the above note about Brother Bernard: have checked Somerville on Google maps and it now seems clear that it is no longer there. I clearly recall that there was no other road between it and Marston Ferry Road, and that there was a little side road (to the Banbury Road), Cunliffe Close, just on the south side of it, from which I looked over the wall into No. 130, before speaking to Brother Bernard. Well, the buildings there are now clearly different. There is a large L-shaped building quite close to the Banbury Road, fairly clearly lying across where the drive used to go, and in place of No. 130 itself (generally square in plan view I would have thought) is a very oblong building extending generally north/south parallel to the Banbury Road, apparently, with part of Cunliffe Close leading up to it. This could easily be checked by driving into Cunliffe Close when visiting Oxford. On comparing today’s Google satellite view of the site with one from 2007, there isn’t actually that much difference. Today I thought that the old house had gone. I still think so. I need to check it when I next go to Oxford by car. (16.4.09) Have now done so (on Mon.6.4.09) and it was clear that Somerville House itself was indeed still there. And I have gone back to the Google plan view maps and re-verified that this is so. It is. And the now-available elevation view on Google maps (though only from ‘Streets’ and not from, eg, ‘drives of private gardens’, of course), does show, over the garden wall adjacent the row of garages, the LH front window (and just about the front door) of Somerville House;
So, in 2009, fifty years after WGRA left Somerville House in 1959 (after living there for about 34 years), the building is still there, but with a shared drive and houses/ other buildings covering the front and back gardens – as one would expect, I suppose, in a city like Oxford, where land is infinitely valuable and people are willing to pay for it. Gone are the orchards, the summer house, the fruit cages, the full-time gardener and greenhouse – and perhaps above all, the sense of spaciousness and freedom, that I once felt in ‘grandpa’s (now) lost empire’, back in the 1940s. Those immediately post-war days were, for many people, days of austerity and shortage and of want. But for me, grandpa’s garden and orchard were my ‘cloud-capp’d towers and gorgeous palaces’, and have remained so, in memory, to this day. But they are gone. The space they occupied has been put to other and perhaps (some would say) better uses, as is always the case. Nothing stays the same for very long. And I am lucky to have memories of that kind to muse on. It is interesting that WGRA did indeed choose to have a garden like that, as a way of spending some of his wealth. There were, as far as I know, no precedents for it. His father, AGA, did not do so. The house at Tackley Place had a nice enough large-ish garden for a Victorian terrace house, but as far as I know it was no more than ‘the usual adjunct to the house’, and WGRA’s grandfather, John Archer (junior), common brewer, may well have had no garden at all in his St Aldates Street home(s), such as (if it was so) the one at Folly Bridge, or only a nominal garden; (28.12.09/pba useless thought/: why didn’t I ask Grandpa about his grandpa? It would have been so (now) infinitely useful to know what he knew and remembered and liked and thought interesting about John Archer. Of course, I know why I didn’t: I wasn’t interested enough when I was young enough to have asked, and in any case I didn’t know enough to ask the right questions, and no doubt it is always so, though perhaps what I am doing now may to some extent overcome this problem for ongoing generations of this family, if it survives.
Other notes:
FGBA’s manuscript notes sheet states: “Sent sheets of records to Sandra Condit 10.1.1986, and the page has her business card attached: “Sandra R. Condit, District Representative, H. James Sexton, Member of Congress, 13th District , New Jersey, 115 High Street, P.O. Box 38, Mt Holly, New Jersey, 08060 (United States) Tel: (609) 261 5800; (pba 23 June 2003)
Believe Sandra Condit is a daughter of Eileen and Al Raff, Eileen being (pba’s cousin and) the eldest daughter of Arthur Archer, the elder son of William Archer. This can be verified by (pba’s other cousin) Pam Ince; (pba 23 June 2003)
It might be extremely useful to contact Sandra Condit in case we can assist each other; (pba 23 June 2003)
William Archer was born (6th October 1878) exactly 63 years before pba (6th October 1941); (pba 23 June 2003); (pba/14.10.08: check birth certificate for year: 1878 or 1879?)
From Family Records Centre Wills, microfiche data on 16th February 1998: “Blake, George, of “The Chestnuts, Woodstock Road, Oxford, died 29th March 1925, probate Oxford 6 June to William George Reed Archer, removal contractor and warehouseman, Francis William Nix, retired civil servant, and Herbert Terry Baines, solicitor. Effects: £66,518. 19s.6d.
Deaths records (Family Records Centre 16th February 1998): George Blake, age 74, Headington, Vol 3a, p120, Jan/Mar 192 5.
From notes (manuscript) by pba on discussions with pba’s father FGBA on 24.12.1988: “WGRA was an active and go-ahead and successful business man. He went initially to Holland and worked in the Reed paper business. He returned to England with sufficient experience to be taken on as manager by Mr Blake in his furniture business. Mr Blake was a wealthy man with one or two shops, a workshop where I think Dad said they made furniture and presumably repaired/restored it. Mr Blake invested in property and owned a number of houses. Elizabeth and Alice Gilder were his adopted daughters. They came from Hinckley (the manuscript note says, but surely this is a misunderstanding or a mis-remembrance, pba 9th July 2003). WGRA married Elizabeth, his boss’s daughter. Presumably she lived in a comfortably well-off home.”
(Continuing the notes on the discussions with FGBA on 24.12.1988): “WGRA was presumably successful as manager of the furniture business, because in due course his uncle, James Archer spotted him as a likely/suitable person to reinvigorate the firm. Not sure exactly what Uncle Jim offered him, but I think I have heard that Uncle Jim effectively gave him his share in the business. Apparently WGRA worked the business up successfully.”
(Continuing the notes on the discussions with FGBA on 24.12.1988): “The partners in the furniture removals business:
a)Mr Rippington – a bit of a drinker (spirits I think Dad said), used to be a member of a club, forgotten the name, central Oxford;
b)Mr Cowley – lived at Abingdon, drove a Bull-nose Morris. More of a worker than Mr Rippington, I think Dad said;
c)Uncle James Archer – a bit of a sleeping partner in the business. It was going downhill a bit when WGRA joined.”
(Continuing the notes on the discussions with FGBA on 24.12.1988): “WGRA qualified as a valuer”.
(Continuing the notes on the discussions with FGBA on 24.12.1988): “Questions: (1) When did WGRA join the removals business? (2)What was it called then? (3)When was the centenary? (4) When did Mr Rippington leave? (5) Was it a limited company then? Or later?”
WGRA’s notes on the history of Archer Cowley & Co:
History of Archer Cowley & Co;
Transcribed from WGRA’s handwritten notes (on the back of an envelope):
James Archer born 1836, founded James Archer & Co, 1857; retired 1919, and put in William GR Archer in his place; died 1922, aged 86, was 62 years in the business;
William GR Archer was office boy (pba: name of firm not stated, perhaps implies same firm as item 1 above ie James Archer & Co, but I have a clear recollection of WGRA’s story of asking Mr Blake for a rise, when WGRA was only paid ‘x’ shillings per week, and Mr Blake giving him a hard-headed answer) at 5 shillings per week from June 1893 (pba: age 14 yrs 8 mths) – 1894; left and went to Holland for a holiday and remained there for 6 years; (added in an ‘arrowed insert’): Clerk at Papierfabriek at Kaizersveer, Raamsdonk, owned by Albert E. Reed;
William GR Archer became partner with MJ Cowley and R. Rippington on 1st July 1919, when James Archer retired as landlord;
William GR Archer became sole owner of the premises in 1933 (pba: presumably this means that he bought-out Cowley and Rippington) and in 1944 made (the business) a Private Company and self (as) Governing Director;
(this item indeed follows the above items 2 to 4 in WGRA’s hand-written note): William GR Archer became House Furnisher with George Bake & Co from 1900 to July 1919;
R. Rippington died December 1933; was partner since 1890 with MJ Cowley and James Archer;
MJ Cowley joined James Archer 1876; retired December 1933 after death of R. Rippington; died February 1944 (57 years service);
(so: (pba) it is clear that WGRA acted in 1933, the year when Rippington died, and Cowley retired, to buy out their interests in the firm, and to become sole owner of the business and of its premises);
The firm ran (a) “Daily Carrier” (business) to Radley and Abingdon from 1886 for many years with a 2-wheel horse van (photo in scrap book) [lost by Cantays, and no copy apparently made by WGRA/FGBA/AWA]; (pba: Question: what did the firm do during the 29 years 1857 to 1886? I have always assumed, presumably mistakenly, that such ‘2-wheel horse van’ was the firm’s first business activity, but apparently not.[2.10.08])
Horse pantechnicon vans from 1890 for many years until 1925 were put on rail for long-distance removals; (so[pba.2.10.08]: only 4 years after the commencement of the ‘2-wheel horse van’ carrier business it expanded/changed or added to itself the business of ‘removals’ by rail, using the (then) newly-available facility of transporting the ‘pantechnicon’ horse vans by rail to the nearest station to its destination, and then completing the journey’s last stage again by use of horses. Presumably this would have arisen directly out of the ‘Daily carrier’ business, when people wanted help with carrying things at the time of their ‘removal’ to another house, and the rail network had enormously expanded so that it covered the whole country. Wikipedia says that: The Great Western Railway was first opened to Oxford in 1844, but the passenger station moved to its present site in 1852. Major subsequent changes were removal of the last 7 ft 0¼ in (2140 mm) gauge tracks in 1872 and of the train shed in 1890-1. The station was substantially rebuilt by the Western Region of British Railways in 1971, and the new main building and footbridge were added in 1990. Well, the GWR was clearly in Oxford long before 1857, never mind 1890, but whatever prompted the expansion of the James Archer & Co business into ‘rail pantechnicons’ in 1890, that is what happened and such continued until 1925, by which time motor vans were sufficiently developed that transport of the removals container by rail was no longer needed.)
Lift vans also used for rail (removals) – many years; (pba: 1.10.08: need to find out what ‘lift vans’ actually were); (pba: 1.10.08: Wikipedia says: ‘Trolley and lift van: A standardized trolley and a lift van, a standardized box, designed to fit each other or any other of the same sort. The lift van was the direct counterpart of the modern container in the materials and size appropriate to its time.’ );
Oxford’s first Concrete Warehouse added at Park End Street when I, WGRA, joined the firm in 1919 – completed in 1920; (so, pba.3.10.08: this very significant change occurred almost immediately after WGRA joined the firm, and appears to be an indication of his immediate effect on the firm – unless it was going to happen anyway);
First Foden steam wagon: October 18th (16th?) 1913; (pba.3.10.08: before WGRA’s arrival);
Wallis Stevens steam tractor, Nov 15, 1901, replaced by:
Fowler steam tractor June 1907, sold 1923; (both before WGRA’s arrival – pba.3.10.08);
Our first Dennis petrol 4 ton van bought August 25th 1921, cost £1184; (pba. 3.10.08: soon after WGRA’s arrival. See http://www.igg.org.uk/gansg/00-app1/rt-combk.htm for a view of a 1927 Dennis lorry, where it states: ‘By the 1930s steam lorries were still widely used, especially for heavy duties, the diesel engine was becoming more common on larger oil engined lorries but smaller lorries were usually petrol engined, at the time these were considered more reliable’.) sold June 4th 1934: £40;
(pba: 1.10.08: so, it appears that the use of ‘rail pantechnicons’ continued for about 4 years, until 1925, after the acquisition of the Dennis petrol 4 ton van. Presumably it must have been found to render the use of rail pantechnicons either redundant or not economical. I note that a similar change in the economics of removals was referred-to by Roger Watts of Cantays when he was speaking to me about the history of AC & Co after their acquisition of it and subsequent sale of the removals business due (I think he said, I need to check the point) to a change in people’s requirements in relation to removals, and the rise of self-removal operations using hired vans. This led to Cantay’s diversification into property and apartment rentals;
NB: (not part of WGRA’s notes, but relevant to them): see James Archer’s cv for much more about the history of Archer & Co/Archer Cowley & Co, including Mack J. Cowley and Richard Rippington;
Questions:
a) it would be very interesting to know/guess the reason why James Archer went into partnership with Mack Cowley who, it appears from the census information, to have been a mere clerk in his employ, and not at all a businessman/entrepreneur;
b) why/how did James Archer make so much money? He made enough so that he was able to leave his nephew William Archer effectively ‘ a fortune’ in the 1920s. This had apparently been made out of a business that started in a very small way as a one-horse carrier’s cart taking parcels to Abingdon. Of course such a business could grow over the 43 +22 or so years between foundation in 1857 and James Archer’s retirement in 1922 (ish). But the very fact that he took into partnership Mack Cowley, a not very affluent clerk (or similar), well before 1900 suggests that ….. well, actually, maybe that is the answer: he took Mack Cowley into partnership in 1876 and Richard Rippington in 1887 for the very reason that the business was successful and expanding, and needed young(er) and (more) energetic management. And for all I know, he was successful in that objective. And taking-in people who were not already successful in business meant that they would not be able to demand a large slice of the profits of the business. Nevertheless, even though one can see, perhaps, why James Archer took in partners, that still does not explain the fact that the business was clearly, in its latter years, not nearly profitable enough to have generated the wealth that WGRA inherited from Uncle James Archer. Though here again, things may not have been quite as they seemed to me. For example, in its latter years the business was generating directors’ remuneration for WGRA’s 3 daughters and two sons, and himself, and this accumulated income may have been enough, over the profitable ‘empire’ years of James Archer’s control of the business, to have become a very respectable sum. (above transcribed 24.9.2008/pba/at Kenmore.)
(From pba’s manuscript notes: “A.Olive Sunday 19.9.93): Centenary dinner was at the Cadena (pba: a café/restaurant in Cornmarket Street). The unknown man on the top table in the big picture was a ‘Mr Ward’, their man of the warehousing association.”
(24.10.2009): I have now more or less given up on the attempt to get back to the Roger Watts and Cantays to see again the AC & Co minute book. I might try calling in at the office to ask if I might “have a brief word with Mr Watts”, and if not possible, to leave a letter for him. I would say that I had called to check whether my two previous letters to him asking if I might briefly inspect the minute book further, had actually arrived, as I had not received any reply even though the second of them had a reply slip and a stamped and addressed envelope;
Probably the above would get me nowhere, but actually, it doesn’t matter too much, as it is clear that the AC & Co scrapbook may well have been lost, and in any case will not be accessible to me, so, without it, it will be impossible to do a properly illustrated history of the firm, and without the rest of the minute book it will be impossible to do a complete history of the firm.
So the prospect of making a wonderful production of the history of AC&Co, has now more or less receded over the horizon, and the best I can expect to do is a truncated history as part of the family history;
In any case, neither WGRA nor FGBA nor AWA nor NERA and her sisters ever made, as far as I know, any attempt to record anything as part of a history of the firm, so clearly such things were not seen by them as being of any importance. The only exception to the above is WGRA’s ‘back of an envelope’ notes on the history of the f irm, which indeed I have transcribed above;
To assist in doing what I can on AC&Co’s history, I have today, 24.10.2009 bought a copy of the history of Pickfords, the removals firm, which predates AC&Co condiderably. This contains much historical matter and is likely to be of considerable relevance in filling-in gaps in the story in terms of providing photos of missing vehicle types etc;
Dates of entry of data:
1) 23 June 2003; 2) 24.9.2008; (must be some dates missing);
The Archer ‘Clan’ in Oxford:
(Notes by pba 9th November 2005): When I look back at growing up in Oxford in the 1940s, I have tended to have the feeling that ‘there was quite an Archer clan’ around the city;
And that feeling has been, I believe, to some extent the basis for my strong wish to do something about the family history information which has been accumulated by NERA and FGBA among others. In other words, I have felt that it was important ‘for the Archer family in Oxford’ to put all that information together;
But when I think about it dispassionately, I can now see that in fact my grandpa, WGRA, was really almost the sole member of his generation actually to stay in Oxford. By the time I am talking about, in the 1940s, there was really only WGRA’s sister Rose, living in Oxford, apart from him. He was there because he had been lucky enough to be left a fortune and a business to run. Rose was unmarried and had been left a house (at 20 St Margaret’s Road), and she had a small business in terms of letting parts of that house. So she stayed in Oxford, of course.
But, everyone else had gone elsewhere. Ernest was in Holland. Herbert was in the Thames Valley, Charlie was in Devon, and the sisters had married and gone off with their husbands.
As to WGRA’s own family, his elder daughter Nora had moved away (to Greenford, Middsex), and Elizabeth Gladys, had moved to Taunton, or was soon to do so. His two sons, Fred and Arthur, were in the business, and of course lived locally, and so too did Olive and her husband Oswald Bennett. So that was the ‘Oxford Archer clan’: William and Rose, of the older generation, plus three of William’s sons/daughters and their families. Of these, Fred and Arthur, like William, were in fact retained by the business, Archer Cowley & Co itself. So, it may well be reasonable to say that when Philip and Michael Archer, not to mention Paul Bennett, did not stay in Oxford (and go into the business), they were only doing what most of the rest of the family had done;
So what is the basis for the feeling that there is ‘something special to be rescued’ in the putting together of the family history? Well, it is somewhat connected with Somerville House, 130 Banbury Road, and its magnificent garden, as remembered by a small boy, growing up from nothing to eight in the 1940s, and who occasionally visited this wonderland of spaciousness and secrets and trees and orchards and outhouses and greenhouses and a gardener and fruit cages and all the rest. And it was partly connected with the firm Archer Cowley & Co. where my father worked from the 1930s to the end of the 1960s, ie most if not all his working life. There probably are other things, such as the interesting things which I have discovered about the family such as the Reed connection and the Netherlands links which that led to. 09/11/2005 23:04:11
WGRA Notes made 9.01.2006:
Why did WGRA get all the money from Uncle Jim?
Answer: probably because he was by far the most eligible nephew of Uncle Jim, who was himself childless;
Of his brothers, Ernest was probably well-established in the Netherlands by the time that Uncle Jim came to make his final will;
I have not looked up the details yet, but, of the other sons, John was probably already dead (by, say, 1920) from the motorcycle accident in Leeds), Charlie may have already moved away (to the West Country. So this may well have meant that William was the only really eligible nephew, to the extent that he lived in Oxford and was in business. He already had a family of five children and was well settled, working in his father-in-law (George Blake)’s furniture business.
Hence William George Reed Archer, who, by chance, had not taken up the opportunity to follow his Uncle Edwin into the paper-making business (at around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries), and likewise, perhaps by chance, had not yet got so involved with George Blake’s furniture business as to find any outside offer unattractive, was still, so far as business-commitment was concerned, relatively ‘unattached’ in the 1910 to 1920 period when his uncle Jim was perhaps making up his mind about what to do with his interest in Archer & Co (or was it already Archer, Cowley & Co.?) in view of his (James Archer’s) approaching retirement from the partnership.
Time Line for WGRA:
1878: Born, Shillingford, 6.10.1878; the sixth of eleven (12, including Bertha?) children, of whom the eldest boy, Alfred, died aged 15, and the other elder boy, Ernest, went to Holland, and another boy, John Percy, died in a tramcar accident;
Dates of births (and deaths) of his siblings to be entered in due course from their CVs;
Date of move of his parents from Shillingford to Oxford to be entered in due course when worked out from other data;
1885 -1893 (approx), (ages 7 – 14): No information about schools attended. May possibly have attended City of Oxford High School for boys, as he sent his son Fred there, and possibly his son Arthur. It appears that he left school at age 14;
1893 (age 14) left school;
1893, June: (age: 14 years 8 months) ‘office boy at 5 shillings per week’; not clear whether he was working for James Archer or George Blake at this time. The implication is that it was James Archer, as his manuscript note had at this point not yet mentioned Mr Blake. It would be interesting to look-up/work out the (approximate) date when Elizabeth Gilder’s mother died and Elizabeth went (presumably reasonably soon) to live with her aunt (her mother’s sister actually became likely or possible, perhaps via the Sunday School of the Walton Street chapel, which presumably WGRA attended (and at which presumably his father conducted worship at least occasionally, on a ‘lay preacher’ basis). I believe that I have heard/read that they may have met via that Sunday School, and so her ‘adoption’ by the Blakes might have caused/allowed him to meet the Blakes, who eventually became his (adoptive) in-laws, though he also had the ‘Gilder’ in-laws family who lived in Hinckley;), Mrs Blake, Mr George Blake’s wife, and whether it was before or after June 1893, as that might have been the time when the connection between WGRA and Mr Blake first seems likely, and this might well have affected the question of his first major life decision: whether, in 1900 (approx) to stay on in Holland (see below);
1894 (age 15): Left (wherever he was working as an office boy) and went to Holland for a holiday;
1894 – 1900 (age 15 to 21/22): Remained in Holland for 6 years; (added in an ‘arrowed insert’): Clerk at Papierfabriek at Kaizersveer, Raamsdonk, owned by Albert E. Reed;
1900 (age 21/22): returns to UK and (presumably) Oxford, with 7 or so years’ education, about a year as an office boy in Oxford, and 6 years as a clerk in a Dutch paper factory behind him, which gave him no doubt a good working ability to communicate in Dutch, but perhaps no formal qualifications whatever. This was the time of the Boer War (1899 – 1902) which was going very unfavourably for the British up to 1900, including the Spion Kop debacle, and may well have led to significant anti-British feeling in Holland, and caused WGRA to feel that on-balance, his prospects might well be better in England. Equally, he may have been aware that his Uncle James had no heirs, and that he might well be in-line as such. This latter possibility seems less likely to me because WGRA would have needed to look ahead 19 years to foresee what actually happened and that does not seem very likely for a young man aged 22 as WGRA was;
My notes on discussions with FGBA say that WGRA qualified ‘as a valuer’. This is somewhat in the context of his (then) existing or soon to be forthcoming work for George Blake, and I have always assumed that it referred in some way to valuing furniture, but the more usual meaning refers to the valuation of property (buildings). I am not aware that any formal course or training (effectively for estate agents) existed then, or even now in this country, except of course by way of joining a firm in that business. So that leaves me uncertain what exactly this reference to ‘qualifying as a valuer’ really entailed. But there can be no doubt that when WGRA returned from NL in 1900 it was without any formal qualifications (or he would undoubtedly have mentioned them);
In 1901 at the time of the census he was living at home at 7 Tackley Place, Oxford, aged 22, and enters himself/is entered on the census as a ‘Schoolteacher’, and is the eldest ‘young man’ amongst his (many) siblings;
Early 1900s to July 1919 (age 22/3 to 41) works for George Blake & Co as (or anyway eventually as) a ‘house furnisher’ in his cabinet-making and house-furnishing business. Records of the births of his children during this period (and this 19 year period completely covers their births from 1902 to 1914) show that (inter alia) he was a ‘commercial clerk’ with (though not stated on the birth certificates) George Blake & Co. Presumably he initially had no experience directly relevant to house furnishing, apart from that gained as a clerk at the Papier Fabriek, but by 1919 he now has nearly 20 years’ experience in the ‘furniture/ furnishing’ business, which will stand him in good stead in the somewhat related business of furniture removals. On the birth certificate of his daughter Emma Nora (born 1908) he indicates himself as ‘House furnisher’s Manager’ for the first time, and likewise on the birth certificates of the twins Olive and Elizabeth in 1914;
1914 – 1918 (age 36 – 40) WW1. WGRA is aged 36 to 40. There seems to have been no question of service in the forces, despite the introduction of conscription towards the end of the war, and WGRA not being self-employed (as Frank Penfold became), which was an exempting circumstance;
1902 – 1914 (age 24 – 36) marries Elizabeth Gilder (George Blake’s adopted daughter) and has two boys, Arthur and Frederick, one girl, Nora, and twin girls Olive and Elizabeth.
July 1919 (age 40): William GR Archer became partner with MJ Cowley and R. Rippington on 1st July 1919, when James Archer retired as landlord;
1933 (age 55) became sole owner of the Archer Cowley & Co premises;
1944 (age 66) Archer Cowley & Co becomes a private company (Limited company?) with WGRA as ‘Governing Director’;
(More dates to be entered in due course), but basically, WGRA participated in the running of AC & Co more or less until the business was sold in (from memory) 1970, which was just after he died in 1969 at the age of 90. His sons Arthur and Fred ran the business, living, respectively until 1977 and 1991, and being aged about 67 and 65 when the business was sold. So, whereas James Archer died aged 86 after 62 years in the business, his nephew William died aged 90 after about 49 years in the business, and the business was then very soon sold (by his sons Arthur and Frederick, because there was no one in the family to take it onwards) after they (Arthur and Frederick) had spent most of their working lives in it ie about 45 years in each case (exact periods not clear as I have no information about when they joined their father in the business in, presumably, the 1920s. I suppose it might have been as late as 1933 when Messrs Cowley and Rippington retired/died, but that would mean that Arthur and Frederick would have had to work elsewhere (than AC & Co) for the significant number of years (from about 1917 and 1919 when they might well have left school at the age, in each case, of about 14) until about 1933;
Summary of his life:
Son of an inland revenue officer and the sister of a) the man who founded the Reed Paper Mills empire, and b) the woman who married GJ Churchward’s uncle;
Sixth child. His eldest brother died at the age of 15. His first eight or so years, from 1878 to 1886, were based at the family home at Shillingford, some ten or so miles south of Oxford on the road to Henley-on-Themes. Presumably he went to school there at least briefly, before, in 1886, moving with the family to 7 Tackley Place, St Giles, Oxford, where the family lived from 1886 for a good many years;
Prior to 1886 the family had been itinerant, as Alfred George Archer was moved in his job, first from Wells (where he had met his boss’s daughter and married her) to Rothwell, Northants, then back to Wells, and then to Shillingford (as evidenced by the places of birth of WGRA’s brothers and sisters);
Probably had a rather limited (in the sense of duration at least) education, but understandably so as one of eleven (12?) children;
He had a great opportunity to work for his Uncle Albert Edwin Reed in Holland – which he did for 6 years from about 1894 to 1900, but then gave it up and returned to the UK, perhaps because his education was insufficient to be able to handle the technical issues (but there must have been much in the way of business opportunities, one would think). Or perhaps he returned to the UK on account of anti-British feeling in Holland at that precise time, caused by the British involvement in the ‘Boer’ war against Dutch farmers in the Transvaal and Northern Cape, and the Orange Free State, which had some particularly unpleasant aspects including the Spion Kop debacle (for the British) and the subsequent concentration camps for the women and children of fighting Dutch farmers;
WGRA’s decision to go back to Oxford from Holland in about 1900 was a fundamental one for his life and for his family’s, a veritable crossroads. Hence he abandoned the world of papermaking and the opportunities (whatever they were – we don’t know) that it offered, presumably of a life in Holland and elsewhere internationally, and involvement in the technical and scientific world of papermaking. And so WGRA went back to Oxford, where he had lived only from 1886 to 1894, a mere 8 years, and within a further 2 years (1902) he had married a local girl, the adopted daughter of a successful Oxford businessman, and was working for that businessman in his furniture shop in St Giles. Thus the 1900 ‘return to Oxford’ decision steered WGRA and his family away from the ‘International’ world that his elder brother Ernie opted for and into the world of Oxford business. WGRA’s sons were likewise affected and both chose and/or were somewhat obliged to go into that same world of Oxford business, with their father. I (pba) was not so-obliged in any way by my father, even though I now think that he probably hoped I would, and the option was certainly there in 1960/61 when I left school, at least 8 or 9 years before the business was sold to Cantays;
In the 1901 census, a year or so after returning from Holland, he entered himself as ‘schoolteacher’;
In 1902 married George Blake’s adopted daughter Lizzie Gilder at the Walton Street Methodist chapel. Their children were born in 1903 (Arthur), 1905 (Fred), 1908 (Nora), 1914 (the twins, Olive and Gladys), all while the family lived at 64 Kingston Road;
Worked for his wife’s uncle, George Blake (actually his father-in-law) for about 17 or so years (from 1901/2 or so) and thereby learned ‘the furniture trade’ and was likely to have inherited substantially from George Blake when he died; but
By then (before George Blake died) his Uncle James had got to the end of his business life and handed-on his ‘Carrier’ business to his nephew William as being the most likely relation to be able to take the business on successfully; that only happened, presumably, because James Archer had no children;
Thus he became a rich man in his early forties, and for the remainder (almost 50 years) of his life was involved with that business, and lived as a ‘man of property’ with an impressive house/garden and staff including housekeeper/maids/ full-time gardener etc. None of this had been actually earned by WGRA, apparently, but was passed on to him by his Uncle James, who must have made most of the money in the latter part of the nineteenth century;
Doing things/having people do them for you: WGRA seems from this distance (2009) to have been more inclined to have people do things for him than to do them himself, and in this way (eg by having servants/staff at Somerville) was able to create a way of life that seems (in comparison with 21st century ways) very enviably relaxed in the sense that there was time for thought and leisure, and we have some slight record of WGRA’s interests in terms of his records of some aspects of his gardening – such as the photograph and notes about the young Blenheim Orange apple tree in fruit long before 10 years. Sadly he apparently left behind no records of his thoughts or much writing, and indeed even the history of the firm, Archer Cowley & Co (which surely must have been important to him) is merely written on the back of an envelope. pba./5.10.09).
(10.10.2009): If it is right that WGRA was first an office boy for Mr Blake and then a clerk at the Dutch Papierfabrik, then a clerk and more for Mr Blake, and finally his own boss at AC & Co, then, during that latter phase from about 1925 to 1969 (44 years) he deployed the skills he had learned in (at my best guess) 6 or 7 years at school plus a good many years ‘clerking’ with, probably, no formal training at all, to very good effect. He ran the business he inherited in such a way that it prospered in at least a modest way, and it may have grown at least modestly during his years – it is difficult to know. His business acumen was presumably all acquired by observation and without instruction, but the business remained solid and dependable with a body of clients who, so it always seemed (and this was even confirmed to me by someone I met in Lyddington since we moved here in 1994) had a very high opinion of the skill and integrity and carefulness of its staff, when caring for its customers’ possessions and effects. To put it another way, the business provided directorship incomes for WGRA’s three daughters, plus earned incomes for his two sons, plus whatever income he paid himself, and it did this for at least several decades. Admittedly this was a business that had apparently been profitable enough for James Archer to accumulate the fortune that he passed on to WGRA, besides presumably remunerating Messrs Cowley and Rippington adequately. But even so, it has to be accepted that WGRA must have been a ‘steady hand on the tiller’ for all those years.
Were his years at Somerville a ‘golden age’?
Well they had that feel to me when I first became aware of these things in the late 1940s, by which time he had remarried;
He inherited from ‘Uncle James’ in 1919 in terms of Uncle James’s business activities, and in the mid-1920s in terms of his actual estate, so he became ‘rich’ in the ‘roaring twenties’;
And he spent quite a lot of that money on a complete change of his lifestyle and business-style: from being furniture-shop employee he became self-employed, being responsible for domestic staff and a gardener at Somerville as well as (in part at least, until Cowley and Ripppington retired years later) all the staff at Archer Cowley & Co;
And that house and garden was indeed an inspiration to me and likewise (I gather) to my cousin Pam. It was a vision of what life could be – perhaps something to strive for, and to some extent inspired me to buy our present home in Lyddington (in 1994) as representing the nearest I was likely to get, to living in a home offering a combination of garden and living space on a scale remotely comparable to Somerville’s;
And although his life at Somerville must have changed significantly in 1938 when his wife, Lizzie, died, he lived on there with (from the early 40s) his second wife, Mary Kate Ray, until 1959, in a somewhat similar manner, so that the vision that Somerville represented endured for about 25 years, though perhaps the best and most heady days must have been the late 20s when his daughters were aged from about 20 (Nora, in 1928) and about 14 (the twins in 1928), his sons being 23 (Fred) and 25 (Arthur), and England being then at the height of the post-war boom (I think – need to check with Schama’s comments), and perhaps Lizzie’s illness not yet being serious;
So his acquisition of Somerville was an inspiration to some at least of his family, which would not have happened had he continued with his uncle James’s less-outgoing more cautiously financially prudent ways; (pba.11.8.09).
WGRA’s will:
Order for probate and will documents prepared for mailing 15.01.09;
Am planning to order corresponding documents for: (i) FGBA; (ii) AGA; (iii) John Archer, junior; (iv) Mark James Cowley; (v) William Wells, and many others;
(25.7.09) Have re-ordered the probate and will documents some few days ago, requesting and paying the fees for coverage of the 20-year period from the date of death in 1969, which surely covers all my father’s work on the will, which must have been settled in those 20 years, and extends to within 2 years of my father’s death in 1991;
Questions about WGRA:
How much, if anything did he know about Lizzie Gilder’s Jericho family connections and her father’s 1884 Police Court case? Probably we shall never know.
Certainly, the one person who might have known, other than WGRA himself, was his favourite child, NERA, from whom I have a written note that she told me she didn’t know why the Gilder family went to Hinckley;
Possibly almost no one knew about the 1884 case nor about WG’s 3-month incarceration, I suspect;
It may have been a terrible secret kept by WGRA and which he may have not known about prior to his marriage to EEG, and possibly not for a long time during his marriage, or even not at all;
(Long after writing the above, 11.8.2010, after lunching with Chas Ince, Pam Archer.Ince’s widower):
(i) in 1884, the year of the ‘WG case’, WGRA was aged only 6 and he and the rest of his family were living at Shillingford, a long way out of Oxford, so, definitively, they would not have heard anything about it at that time, not least because they then knew nothing of the Gilders;
(ii) in 1886, the year that the Oxford Gilder family moved to Hinckley, and the year that Alfred George Archer and his wife Olive Emma Reed.Archer moved from Shillingford to Oxford, WGRA would have been aged 8 so that although he was then living somewhere where it would be possible to hear about the case, the likelihood of him doing so is very low, not least because at age 8 he would not really have been interested in such a matter, and, again, he would not have known anything about the Gilders;
(iii) in the then-following 8 years (1886 – 1894), WGRA would have been unlikely to hear anything about the case because the Gilder family had moved to Hinckley, thereby putting a ‘tin lid’ on the interest that the case caused. Lizzie Gilder, aged one-year-older-than WGRA, was living with her ‘Uncle Blake’ and ‘Aunty Sarah’ and was thereby somewhat insulated from the effect of the case. All-in-all, I should think that the going-to-Hinckley by Walter Gilder and his family would have effectively ‘killed’ the scandal caused by the case, as the people most affected by it were no longer there at the heart of the scandal, to be talked-about. In Hinckley, hopefully, no one knew about the case and the Gilders could get on with rebuilding their lives;
(iv) and when WGRA left school in 1894, aged 16, and went to Holland to be a clerk in his Uncle Albert Edwin Reed’s paper mill, and stayed there for 6 years until 1900, that further de-fused the effect of the case, so far as he was concerned, in the sense that when he came back, 6 years later, the case and the scandal that went with it was a further 6 years older (ie no longer of any current interest) and so, effectively the case had been ‘put to bed’; hence|
(v) when in 1902 he married Lizzie Gilder it now seems possible that he may not have known about the case – she was effectively ‘the daughter of’ the eminently respectable (and probably by then also eminently well-off) Mr and Mrs Blake, and thus in that way likewise ‘insulated’ from the effects of the case;
As to whether EEG herself knew about the case is hard to say. Certainly, it is clear that her father must have disappeared from home for 3 months, between August and November 1884. That was (i) two years and 6 months after her mother died in February 1882; (ii) two years and 9 months since her infant brother Edward Gilbert had died at home; (iii) but only two months since her father married Susannah Collins on 16th June 1884 – this later fact is perhaps the starkest of all. And yet it was indeed so. At least the children (ages 7 downwards) had someone to look after them, which otherwise might not have been the case.
(11.8.2010):Was WGRA a domineering martinet, as his daughter-in-law Gwen Penfold.Archer said? Well certainly there seems to be some evidence that he was at the very least a bit of a ‘control-freak’ – meaning someone who liked to control things around them, which probably also means that they like to think that they know the best way to make the world go round faster. Thus the evidence for this seems to be: (i) that his sister Lena told Gwen that he (William) was cruel or unkind to his wife (Lena’s best school-friend) Lizzie Gilder, and this seems to be borne-out by Lizzie’s somewhat ‘scared’ look in her (joint) photo with William in which he likewise looks somewhat ‘scary’ to me, or at the very least ‘very stern’; and (ii) that Lena likewise told Gwen that he beat his sons (Arthur and Fred), though this may well have been (in those days) perfectly normal activity by a Victorian parent minded to give their offspring a properly-disciplined start in life; and (iii) that he worked-on in the family business (AC & Co) until more or less the very end of his life (at age 90), completely ignoring (probably because, like most control-freaks, including my mother-in-law Nancy Garner, he was unaware of it) the inhibiting effect that his presence would inevitably have on his sons, which (inhibiting) effect thus extended over the entire span of their lives. This latter point is based on nothing more than my own observation of the simple fact of his non-retirement; and (iv) (this comes today from Chas Ince, confirming what I knew from several sources within the family, including Chas’s wife, my cousin Pam) that the ‘feud’ between WGRA and his elder son Arthur which started at the start of Arthur’s working life and (according to Chas) was probably never resolved. That difference of opinion was basically about Arthur’s freedom to work where he wanted. He wanted to (and did so at first) work at Morris Motors in the Automotive Industry, which was his great love apparently. Going off and pursuing a technical career might have been fine for Arthur to do (in principle) prior to 1919, but in 1919 James Archer approached WGRA with his offer of business prospects in the removal business. So WGRA would most likely have seen that this represented an opportunity for Arthur to (help to) run a family-owned business, and would have expected Arthur to fall-in with his (WGRA’s) plans for this. That Arthur didn’t readily fall in with this plan was most likely the source of all the (below the surface) difficulties that were never resolved, though he did eventually join his (more compliant) brother Fred, and his father of course, in the firm in due course, but he never made up the ground he had lost in terms of seniority within the firm and in terms of salary likewise. It would not have eased Arthur’s feeling of frustration at not being permitted or encouraged to do what he wanted to do in terms of a career, that his younger sister Nora (born 1908) was indeed given (because the funds were then available, from James Archer’s will, by the time she needed them for further education at University at age 18 or so in 1926) every encouragement and funding and indeed lavish praise, not to mention the whole top floor of Somerville House, to do what she wanted to do, which was to pursue a medical career. Poor Arthur was ‘trapped’ in the family removals business with his father and brother. He could have done other things, I suppose, but he had probably not been educated to a level that would have made an alternative career a readily-pursued option, and so he………….(to be completed)
Somerville in Recent Times:
Of course, these days (today is 14.6.2014) you can very easily visit 130 Banbury Road on Google Maps to see, for example, a ‘Satellite View' of the site, and the "Street View' takes you not just to the gates on Banbury Road, but right up the drive so that you can see the house itself and the greenhouse. And, somehow, at over 65 years since I first saw it in its ‘glory days’ (as I might call them) under Grandpa William’s ownership, with just that one house on the site, it now looks less of a Xanadu than in my childhood memories. In the above satellite view I have tried to show Somerville in the middle of the very-much-zoomed-in (ie close-up) aerial view of the site, as the middle of a sandwich between the massive brick building in the rear (furthest from Banbury Road) garden (as it was) and the wooden building in the front garden. Well, well. Times change, and life moves on.