Picturing our ancestors lives.

[pinefamily]

One of my great grandfathers wrote a short poem his wife my great grandmother when she died; it is on the headstone. Very moving.

[coombs]

Picking a year at random, say 1847, for an ancestor, at random. William Coombs who would have been 19 that year. He was a litho printer. He was probably still living with his mother in Carburton Street, Marylebone (She went into the workhouse in 1848). In 1847 we had cameras, and maybe street lamps but I would think the tenement they lived in Carburton Street was dingy, had a fireplace, wooden flooring and echoey stairs, no electric, no running water, no heating. Washing yourself and clothes in a bowl and using a communal tap I think and a outside loo. And the risk of spread of diseases.

[jaybelnz]

The following description is of the Miner's Row Cottage that my maternal great grandfather Whitefield Watson was living in c.1881 at 10 Connel Park, New Cumnock, with his parents Joseph & Elizabeth, sisters Susannah & Catherine, and brother John, all named in the 1881 census.  This description was kindly given to me by R. of Cumnock, Scotland.    R. himself lived in this very same house during his early childhood, from 1950 until 1956.  This is his recollection of the house. (Probably about 20 sq feet or so, but can't find the measurement right now).
 
"The house consisted of two rooms, one a living area and one a kitchen.  The living room had two built-in beds in the wall, there would be curtains drawn across these through the day when not in use.   There was a coal fired range where all the cooking was done and kettle boiled.
 
There was a door to the kitchen where you had to step down two steps to get to the floor level.   It was just a plain cement floor with a drain at the wall.  There was only a very small window on the back wall, with a big white sink in front of it, with one cold water tap only.   In the corner was a large round boiler built into a brick surround, with an opening under it at the front for a fire, so as to heat the water.   There was a big wooden cover fitted over it, so no weans would fall in and get scalded.
 
There was always a large tin bath hung on the wall near the back door.   The water was boiled by the wife, who then paled it out into the bath, which was placed in the middle of the kitchen floor for her man to wash in when he came home from his shift at the pit.   When he finished his bath, the water was poured out onto the floor to clean it, and then brushed down the drain.
 
I have always mind of, in the spring, you would go through into the kitchen in the morning, and there would be nothing but frogs jumping all over the floor, for they would have come up through the drain at night.
 
The wife would boil  more water and wash the pit clothes in the large sink, using a scrubbing board and bars of soap.  Then they would be dried in front of the fire, in winter, for her husband to wear for his next shift at the pit.   That happened six days a week, only a Sunday off, what a life!
 
There was no inside toilet, you had to go to the communal toilets at the back of the rows.   There was a small garden at the front, facing onto the main road.   
 
The Clauchan was next door.   This was a large room, where the men would play dominoes, cards, darts and carpet bowls - this was a place where the day's work would be talked about.   I bet there was more coal shovelled there than was ever done at the pit".

Just slightly different from my paternal great grandparents, who lived in what is now a listed property
in the Conservation area of Stockwell Park in Lambeth, London

[IgorStrav]

Thank you for posting jaybelnz.

Whilst I've not been fortunate enough to get specific descriptions like this of the places and circumstances of my own ancestors, I do know their backgrounds and have been able to imagine at least some of how they must have lived.

I wonder if you know what I mean when I say it's always at the back of me now I know a little about it, not a burden, but just a history stretching behind me, which I am often reminded of when I step into a hot shower or turn up the central heating, or conversely open a window on to the garden.  This research has certainly made me much more aware of my own very lucky circumstances.

[jaybelnz]

It certainly does make us more aware of how things were for our ancestors, and the progress that had been made by them, right down to emigration for a better life in other countries.

Certainly brings us closer to them, as we can also learn more about their lives and times from all the different websites that are available, and of course, Rootschat  - while sitting comfortably in bed, as I am right now, and now it's time I was getting some sleep!

Jeanne 😄

[coombs]

My Suffolk ancestors seemed to live to good ages, such as 88 in 1865, 86 in 1910, 79 in 1868. I think living in the rural, pretty isolated villages such as Easton, Hacheston and Letheringham must have helped, in the fresh countryside well away from the diseases that was more rife in towns and cities.

Many of my London ancestors died of bronchitis, erysipelas, or phthisis. In April 1884 an ancestor who lived in Whitfield Street, St Pancras, died aged 48 of chronic bronchitis. Her husband died in January 1885 aged 56, of the same thing, a day after going into St Pancras Workhouse.

[Mowsehowse]

My Suffolk ancestors seemed to live to good ages, such as 88 in 1865, 86 in 1910, 79 in 1868. I think living in the rural, pretty isolated villages such as Easton, Hacheston and Letheringham must have helped, in the fresh countryside well away from the diseases that was more rife in towns and cities.

Many of my London ancestors died of bronchitis, erysipelas, or phthisis. In April 1884 an ancestor who lived in Whitfield Street, St Pancras, died aged 48 of chronic bronchitis. Her husband died in January 1885 aged 56, of the same thing, a day after going into St Pancras Workhouse.

Definitely that, but also before penicillin of course!

[IgorStrav]

My Suffolk ancestors seemed to live to good ages, such as 88 in 1865, 86 in 1910, 79 in 1868. I think living in the rural, pretty isolated villages such as Easton, Hacheston and Letheringham must have helped, in the fresh countryside well away from the diseases that was more rife in towns and cities.

Many of my London ancestors died of bronchitis, erysipelas, or phthisis. In April 1884 an ancestor who lived in Whitfield Street, St Pancras, died aged 48 of chronic bronchitis. Her husband died in January 1885 aged 56, of the same thing, a day after going into St Pancras Workhouse.

Definitely that, but also before penicillin of course!

Sadly TB continued well into the 20th Century.  My grandfather died in 1925 at the age of 48, after years in and out of TB hospitals (I have some very sad letters from him to my grandmother), and my uncle died in 1943 of TB - I found him in a sanitorium in Woodford Green in London in the 1939 Register.  My mother used to say of this uncle, her brother, that having been an adult in the slump of the 1930's, he had never worked.  Added - perhaps I should clarify, what I mean is that he had never been able to get a job. 

[pinefamily]

My grandfather had been exposed to gas during WW I, and as a consequence had weakened lungs. He died of TB in 1935.