German Pork Butchers in Britain

[toni*]

Spidermonkey there was a period of unrest before the war when people didnt like anything German i think Rick Stein WDYTYA touches on this they would be ostrasized simply for having a German name if they were shop owners people wouldnt buy things from them they would have bricks thrown through their windows etc.
i suspect this is why they cahnged their name
event he Royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg to Windosr to make them sound more English.

[Spidermonkey]

Yeah, I guessed that there would have been a lot of anti-German feelings - just makes me sad to think that for 50 odd years this family had been serving the local community (they stayed in the same area the whole time), had married into the local community and had children - some of whom would go on to serve for Britain in WW1, yet felt the need to change their name.

[Bethgem]

My German Grandfather was George Green, using the direct translation of the name Grün. He and his family were very well respected and were supported by their community. I have press clippings about him and it says he was highly thought of in his town, all through his life there.

He was a pork butcher the whole time. His pies were legendary. They brought up 7 girls and 1 boy, The one boy served in the British Army fighting the Germans and he was killed in 1918. His name is on the memorial in the town.

At no time did they suffer any animosity from the community and they were very kind to the poor. I have heard of the incidents of bricks through the windows of other German owned shops and homes, but my Grandfather never had anything of the sort. Must he have been the only one then? I wonder...

[scrimnet]

Spidermonkey there was a period of unrest before the war when people didnt like anything German i think Rick Stein WDYTYA touches on this they would be ostrasized simply for having a German name if they were shop owners people wouldnt buy things from them they would have bricks thrown through their windows etc.
i suspect this is why they cahnged their name
event he Royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg to Windosr to make them sound more English.

Although there was antipathy towards German nationals in Britain, there were no recorded incidents of violence until after the outbreak of war. Most of the antipathy was directed at the German government prior to the war, due to the patent, and declared aspirations of "absolute hegemony" over Europe...The German policy of Weltpolitik and their Naval arms race against Britain had rather more to do with the general pre war suspicions.

It can be argued hat the Kaiser, Tirpitz and Von Moltke "arranged " WW1 at the "War Council" of Dec 1912. This in tandem with the Austro-Hungarian aspirations in the Balkans (crisis in 1908/9 war in 1912/3) had more more to do with it than what 1960s revisionists would have us believe!

The Royal Family didnt change their name until late 1917, after letters patent were published at the end of July that year. It changed from "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" to Windsor. The members of the extended Royal Family who had fought for Germany were not stripped of their British titles until 1919. As I mentioned on p2 of this thread...This had a lot to do with the fact that the German heavy bomber killing British civilians was the Gotha...There were questions raised about the "alien court" by notables such as HG Wells, but as The King pointed out, "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien."

[rbig10]

My greatgreatgrandfather was a German pork butcher in Sheffield from about 1856 - 1900 and was called John George Andrew Gross. I've just started researching the family and found alot of interesting stuff on the censuses. My Grandad had done a family tree in the 1950's and 60's though some of the information there was a bit sketchy. Anyhow, we managed to track his naturalisation papers down at the national archives and found out his place of origin to be Ingelfingen, Wuerttemberg. We know he had a least one sister who married a Smith and left for America, and probably alot more siblings too.

The church archive in Stuttgart has information about families on microfilm, though you need to know which village they came from:
http://www.archiv.elk-wue.de/


You could also check out the following paper by  Karl-Heinz WUESTNER, Kultur und Foerderverein Roeβler-Museum Untermuenkheim, Germany:

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/Arts/CRONEM/CRONEM-papers09/Wuestner.pdf

It seems that most pork butchers in Britain came from the Hohenlohe area of Wuerttemberg.


I checked the Wuerttemberg emmigration database http://www.auswanderer-bw.de, though I couldn't find them. Seems like they only have about 15% of all emmigrants online anyway.


For those having ancestors in Yorkshire, I found the following page useful:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sherry/yorkshire_jewry_in_1881.htm

The author seems to have filtered out of the census all the folks from Germany and East Europe living in Yorkshire in 1881. 

[Trizzie]

Hi Anyone and Everyone.
My Grt Grandparents were German. Grt Grandfather was Anton Joseph Wolpert and he married Christina Elizabeth Wolf in a Catholic Church in Bradford 1870.  Both came from farming families (Wuerttemberg). On marriage cert Joseph is Pork Butcher. I haven't been able to find either Joseph or wife earlier than their marriage.  By 1871 they were living in Bridgegate Rotherham and still Pork butcher.  This ended soon afterwards and they moved to Parkgate Rawmarsh where they remained for life and Joseph became an Iron worker.  I know exactly where they lived etc from then on but as to their earlier history I know nothing! I believe Joseph had several brothers and cousins who were all pork butchers. Whether Joseph and his wife Christina came over from Germany together I don't know.  My father didn't talk much about his German Grandparents even though he grew up living very close to them. He did say that they came over from Germany at the same time as Schonhuts also Pork Butchers Rawmarsh Rotherham and that they were stoned, as were Schonhuts, during the First World War (this was despite my Grt Uncle, their eldest son, being a British soldier) They also had to report to the local police each week as they were classed as aliens.
Both names Wolf and Wolpert seem at times to be Jewish but as I said earlier they were married in a Bradford Catholic Church - have copy of cert.  If anyone can throw any light on the Wolperts or Wolfs I would receive it gratefully. I don't have any photographs or anything! The book sounds interesting. Many thanks. Patricia     

[Bethgem]

Hello and welcome to the board to rbig10 and Trizzie. I hope you find what you are looking for on here about your Pork Butcher relatives.

The link I have given below is to a thread that I started. I had to search for it and found it a few pages back! Anyway, it's just to let you know about it for any information there that might be of interest to you both.

Cheers and best wishes

Bethgem


http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,294729.0.html

 

[SwissGill]

Hi Trizzie

My Great grandfather, Hermann Pfisterer and his wife, Margarethe Brück, were living at 8 Bridgegate, Rotherham, according to their 2nd son's birth certificate (my grandfather, Christian Louis). Before that they were living at 4, High Street, Rotherham (birth Charles Frederick 1865).

Hermann was a Master Butcher and died 1875 in Mexborough. I thought for a long time that they had married in Kuenzelsau, Germany but they married in the Rotherham Parish Church in 1864.

Lighthearted beware!! Guess they were all chatting to each other like we are today.

[Trizzie]

Hello Swiss Gill
My Grt Grandparents also lived at 8 Bridgegate Rotherham - (1871 census) !!! Wonder if your family lived there before or after mine?  Mine were married in Bradford 1870 and I know they must have moved to Parkgate around 1873 or thereabouts.  Second child born Parkgate around this time so they were not there very long. No idea when they arrived from Germany. Believe the children spoke German in the home as they were growing up - according to my dad. The actual building 8 Bridgegate along with others on that side of the street (right hand side up towards the church) was demolished in the 1920s because of road widening. Sure is a small world! Trizzie.