Wales (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Wales => Monmouthshire => Topic started by: Keith Sherwood on Friday 19 December 08 23:26 GMT (UK)
Title: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Friday 19 December 08 23:26 GMT (UK)
Hi, Everyone, Just dipping my toes for the first time in this part of the world as I'd like to discover what kind of place Abergavenny was from the early 1820's through to the 1870's. I'm not even sure whether its records are found under the same county, and which one that might be. I'm trying to trace a Joseph HART, who was in the Census of 1841 there as a "Clerk, Coal Wharf", and thereafter was a "Proprietor of Houses" in 1851 and 1861. There's a death entry for a Joseph HART aged 93, in 1869, which could well be the same man, and it's possible he may have left a will too. His birthplace is given as Longhope, Gloucs... So, where might records for Abergavenny for these years be kept, and where might I read an informative description about the nature of this town then? Very best wishes, keith
Title: Re: Where can I found out about Abergavenny
Post by: pinot on Saturday 20 December 08 00:38 GMT (UK)
Hi Keith, You could do worse than to start off with genuki.org.uk - click on Wales, Wales, Monmouth, Town list click Abergavenny - looks to be loads to read there, but I don't know what you'll find. Cheers, :) Pinot
Title: Re: Where can I found out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Saturday 20 December 08 08:37 GMT (UK)
Thanks for that, Pinot! keith
Title: Re: Where can I found out about Abergavenny
Post by: maidmarianoops on Saturday 20 December 08 08:51 GMT (UK)
Title: Re: Where can I found out about Abergavenny
Post by: maidmarianoops on Saturday 20 December 08 09:25 GMT (UK)
hello again sylvia
Moderator comment: image removed. You may only post parts of census image to assist with deciphering handwriting. Information on the family may be transcribed.
Title: Re: Where can I found out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Saturday 20 December 08 11:02 GMT (UK)
Hi again, Sylvia, And thanks so much for all this information. I've only this morning received by e-mail from Australia from (hopefully) descendants of this family that a Lucy wrote a letter saying she was a younger (and only) sister of Vernon Mary Ann HART, remembering that her elder sister went to Australia with her husband of 1846, John NOTT, and she didn't see her for another 35 years. These facts exactly tally with what we know so far about the family... I think the Joseph HART here is possibly the man who married an Elizabeth GOODE in Hereford in 1821, and who may be the individual who was baptised in Longhope, Gloucs, in 1779, parents Anth. and Ann HART. So, seem to be getting somewhere at last. I don't suppose there might be an 1869 gravestone in a churchyard or cemetery in Abergavenny bearing Joseph HART's (aged 93) name. I'm certainly going to see whether he left a will, and if so, send away to York for it... But very interested to read all the details about what kind of place Abergavenny was in the early Victorian era, many thanks for those links, keith p.s Does Tudor Street still exist, by the way, anyone with local knowledge? p.p.s. This Lucy HART became a Mrs JENKINS, I think, sometime after 1861 - any local marriages that would fit the clues?
Title: Re: Where can I found out about Abergavenny
Post by: maidmarianoops on Saturday 20 December 08 13:26 GMT (UK)
do these fit sylvia
Joseph Hart 1776 Reg1869 Jan/Feb/Mar DIED 93 Abergavenny Monmouthshire ====================== Joseph Hart chris 4 Jan 1784 Redbourn Father Moses Hart Rebeccah
====================
1871 census
Lucy Hart 29 =================
1881 CENSUS Lucy Jenkins 38 stephen h jenkins 35
Stephen J Jenkins 7 Edwin H Jenkins 5 William C Jenkins 3 =======================
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Saturday 20 December 08 15:45 GMT (UK)
Sylvia, I think the first of those two entries for Joseph HART is the correct one, but where did you get the 1776 date from, and was it from Longhope? It's just that the 1779 date from the IGI is a baptism, I believe. Not a hundred per cent sure that that Lucy JENKINS is the right one, as she seems a bit old to be the Lucy HART, aged 12 in 1851 and aged 22 in the 1861. Think I'll hedge my bets on that one for the time being - where was that 1871 and 1881 Census entry, by the way? And thanks very much for spending so much time trying to solve my jigsaw! Very best wishes, keith
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Saturday 20 December 08 15:58 GMT (UK)
Sylvia, Actually, having found the marriage between a Lucy HART and a Stephen Hosken JENKINS in March quarter 1873 in the Monmouth reg. district, you may very well have been onto something, and that her age as given in the Censuses was inaccurate... More food for thought, keith
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Fisherman on Saturday 20 December 08 16:33 GMT (UK)
Hi Keith,
Tudor Street still exists. Have a look at this, it shows a picture of present day Tudor Street and fades to a past view.
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Saturday 20 December 08 18:24 GMT (UK)
Wow! Chris, What a shame all those houses on the right have gone now. Perhaps one housed the HART family for a while. And what is the name of the pub, where the building does still exist, is it The Forresters Arms, but it doesn't look as though there are enough letters on the sign ...? KEITH
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Fisherman on Saturday 20 December 08 18:40 GMT (UK)
Hi Keith,
It is the Foresters Arms. Only one R
Had to use a magnifying glass to read it. :D
The town wreckers planners certainly opened up the view from the pub.
Chris
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Koromo on Monday 22 December 08 09:43 GMT (UK)
Hi Keith
I also have connections with Abergavenny including Tudor Street. The following is from a book of photographs I bought recently:
"Tudor Street (Stryd Porth Tudur) ... the oldest buildings in the street were built before 1550. Until the middle of the 19th century, Tudor Street was the wealthiest suburb of the town, the area where wealthy merchants and respectable town burgesses built large, comfortable residences for themselves and their families. However, as the 19th century wore on, the social make-up of the street changed. The grand houses were sub-divided into tenements and small cottages were built in the gardens and coachyards to the rear. By the 1890s, the street was being described as "a populous working-class district." Demolitions commenced in 1957 [under the Abergavenny Borough Council's 'slum clearance' schemes] and buildings which were thought to contain "nothing of historical or architectural interest" proved to be much older than their facades suggested. Early 17th century wall paintings almost unique in Wales were found beneath layers of wallpaper and paint. A great deal was destroyed before it could even be recorded for posterity."
So sad!
What number Tudor Street are you interested in? Mine was at No 22, Cymreigyddion Hall where the eisteddfod were held in the 1840s, long demolished and now a carpark.
THE website for Monmouthshire resources is Mike John's: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~monfamilies/monfh.htm
I looked for Joseph Hart's burial in the parish record transcripts, but he's not at St Mary's Abergavenny — perhaps he was non-conformist.
Cheers Koromo :)
PS. The Forester's Arms was on the corner of Pant Lane and Tudor Street, and it didn't survive. Below is the same street corner on Google Earth with Tudor Street the west-east road and Pant Lane running northwards — where the cars are parked is where the pub was. I think they are all modern buildings on the north side of Tudor St.
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Monday 22 December 08 10:36 GMT (UK)
Koromo, Thanks so much for all that information about Tudor Street - I found it really very interesting... The HART family only seem to appear there in the 1851 Census, and unfortunately there are no numbers. Would your family have been there at that time, and what was their family name - I could have a little walk down the street and discover how many doors they lived apart! keith
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Koromo on Monday 22 December 08 11:07 GMT (UK)
Hi Keith
Yes my Lewis lot were there on the 1851 census, but probably at the other end of Tudor Street. No 22 was at the eastern end (it is a building that goes from the south side of Tudor St and touches Byefield Lane) which is 13 census pages away from Joseph Hart who may even be near the Forester's Arms.
However, in 1841, Joseph is just one page away from the parental Lewis home in Frogmore St.
Below is from an 1834 map of Tudor St with Pant Lane to the west.
:) K.
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Monday 22 December 08 12:58 GMT (UK)
Koromo, You've saved me the trouble of a long walk! (With my fingers, actually, in the amazing world of the Internet and Yellow Pages). I see your John Lewis on the map - my Mum swears by the products they sell nowadays (used to be Robert Sayles, I think) Joking apart, this is bringing the whole thing to life for me, and I'm still wondering how someone who was a "Clerk Coal Wharf" became a "Proprietor of Houses and Land". Perhaps it's not as grand as it sounds, and Joseph was down the not so ritzy part of Tudor Street, but not far to stagger to the Foresters Arms after a hard day at his desk... keith
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Monday 22 December 08 13:58 GMT (UK)
...and can I pick your brains about this little puzzle, as you seem to have a great deal of local knowledge from this time... I've already asked this on a thread that is going strong in The Common Room, but can you think of any reason - topical, local, or whatever - that a young woman born with the forenames Mary Ann in Abergavenny, and still sporting only those ones at the age of 15/16 in 1841, should by the time of her marriage in London in 1846, have added the forename Vernon in front of those two forenames? Would there have been any kind of Welsh-origin reason? I'm pretty certain, with all my recent correspondence with Australia - many new confirming pieces of evidence - that Mary Ann HART and Vernon Mary Ann HART are one and the same person. keith
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Koromo on Monday 22 December 08 14:24 GMT (UK)
Proprietor of houses probably isn't all that grand. Two unmarried Lewis sisters of mine were so labelled in all the censuses because their father (John Lewis on the map) left them some cottages in his will, and I guess they lived off the rents.
Their brother Edward started his working life as a tinman/brazier/ironmonger — he was the one who bought the Hall in Tudor Street. His children's birth certs and his death cert variously describe him as an ironmonger or former tinman or landed proprietor or gentleman. Take your pick!
I can't offer any explanation for the addition of Vernon to Mary Ann's name, in the same way as I don't know why one of Edward's children began life as Susannah Gwynne Lewis, married a French inventor and added a christian name, so she ended up as Georgina Susannah Gwynne de Lorière Fontaine de Livet. She might have thought Georgina sounded more exotic to go with her new French surname. I have no idea where it came from, certainly not from her family.
To top it all off, one of Susannah's daughters named Blanche emigrated to America where she was known as Countess Blanche de Lorière. Now, that really is climbing the social ladder! I bet she didn't let on that her grandfather was but a tinman from Abergavenny!
These ancestors left many a puzzle! ;)
Koromo
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Lydart on Monday 22 December 08 14:49 GMT (UK)
Would the County Record Office in Cwmbran have records for the Abergavenny area ?
http://www.llgc.org.uk/cac/cac0004.htm
They are good at answering emails ...
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: Keith Sherwood on Monday 22 December 08 14:53 GMT (UK)
Koromo, Sounds as though it was quite a fashionable thing to do at the time, then, not uncommon. Come to think of it, my gt-grandmother who was born as Annie Laura, became Annie Laura Leila by the time she died and had the extra forename put on both her death certificate and her gravestone. (Vernon) Mary Ann called her first son John Fortune, which I suppose is a bit unusual, and the Vernon name crops up quite often in the family thereafter, including John Fortune's son, Edward Vernon... keith Hi again, Lydart, and thanks for that useful link...(Posts crossed one another)
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: debraking183 on Friday 13 April 18 22:50 BST (UK)
Hi Keith
I grew up in Abergavenny, I only live 10 miles from there now. My dad is buried in the Abergavenny Cemetery. What do you want to know?
And yes, Tudor Street most certainly does exist. It leads from the Castle down to Merthyr Road and the police station is on that road, a Doctor’s Surgery, and Linda Vista Gardens (open to the public). Below is a link to the bottom of Tudor Street - you can just go forward to go all the way up
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: JohninSussex on Friday 13 April 18 23:21 BST (UK)
Hi Debra and welcome to Rootschat. Just wanted to check whether you realised you are replying to a question that was asked nine years ago? It's good to get into the habit of checking the dates of posts/threads you come across while searching the fantastic array of material on here.
Title: Re: Where can I find out about Abergavenny
Post by: tararubena on Thursday 19 September 19 10:17 BST (UK)
I think yes, you can use google maps, convenient for accuracy