(This piece was written  Elizabeth Lindell the gr. gr. granddaughter of George Roper through his son Percy my gr. uncle)

George Roper 1843-1900.  

 

My paternal Great grandfather, George, was the sixth child and second son of Samuel and Lydia Roper, who lived in the small Suffolk village of Finborough Magna (now known as Gt. Finborough), a few miles away from Stowmarket. He was born on the first of May 1843, and his birth was registered by his father on the eighth of June. Samuel was an agricultural labourer, and signed the register with his mark, an X. On the eleventh of June baby George was baptised in the parish church at Finborough, as were all his siblings.

 

Census returns give scant details of his young life; in 1851 aged seven he was a scholar, living at home, euphemistically referred to as “The City”. Ten years later,1861, seventeen years old he is a “lone lodger” in High St. St. Osyth, Essex, and working as an agricultural labourer.

 

On 30^th March 1862, aged just nineteen and ten months, George was married in St. Osyth parish church, to Miss Ann Page aged nineteen. Ann does not have an occupation on the marriage certificate, but George is described as a labourer. The couple produced two daughters while in St. Osyth; firstly Maria Anne in 1863 and followed in 1865 by Emily.

 

By 1866 the family was living back in Suffolk, in Stowupland St., Stowmarket, where a son Judah was born on fourth of March and another daughter Lydia in 1869. George was working as a Maltster’s labourer but I feel he had higher ambitions as they moved again to Ipswich Road, Combs where he worked, again as a labourer, in a chemical works. Further research reveals the presence in Stowupland of a factory, Prentice Bros, having started as corn merchants and maltsters and going on to producing artificial fertilisers. It seems highly likely that that is where George was employed. In 1870 the Prentice brothers took a lease on a plot of land between the railway and the river and built a large industrial complex, The Great Eastern Chemical Works*. The raw materials were coprolites (fossilised animal faeces) from Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, which were delivered by rail, and rock phosphates shipped from abroad.

 

Two further sons were born to George and Ann, Herman, at some time after the census day in 1871, and 1874 saw the birth of William, in Stowmarket. During the last few years of the 1870s, production at the factory fell for various reasons (see additional info. attached) and at some time George moved again, to Bury St. Edmunds, where at 9, St Edmunds Place, another son Percy Frederick was born on 23^rd. August 1877. (He was destined to become my Grandfather). George had now moved up the social scale and is described as a Fitter. Another son Edward was born in Bury in 1880 and shortly after his birth they once again moved house and county, returning to Essex, where they took a house at 15 Cromwell Rd. Colchester.

 

At some time in the 1880s, daughter Maria Anne married a soldier by name of Richard Warrall. Two of their small daughters were bridesmaids at Percy’ wedding. Son Judah had also joined the army and married Maud Kirkman and travelled to many different parts of the Empire. Could the presence of a large barracks have had an influence on these choices? The 1881 census gives the occupants of the Colchester house as George, an engine fitter, and Ann, with Emily, a tailoress, and the younger boys Herman, William, Percy and Edward.  Emily, I believe, later married a Mr Pettet, and produced a daughter, Mabel, who was also a bridesmaid at Percy’s wedding.

A ninth child Alice was born at this house in 1883, she seems to have had the nickname “Dolly” as a Miss Dolly Roper was mentioned in Percy’s wedding report in the Stockport press in 1901 along with brother, William and sister Lydia, now Mrs. Lambert.

George seemed to be settled now in his work, and had a job, as an Engine Fitter, with Mumford’s* (A G Mumford Culver St Ironworks, Engineer, Iron and Brass Founder and Boilermaker) who made steam engine components and deep well pumps. George is said to have made parts for the “Jumbo” water tower in Colchester.

 

Sadly for the family, on 29 November 1884, at the age of only forty-one, wife and mother Ann died of TB lungs in the Essex and Colchester hospital, after a two month illness.

 

After Ann’s death George moved house to 12, Popes Lane, Balkerne Hill, Colchester, near to Culver St. where the factory was situated, and it was from here that on 24^th December 1887 he married, in the register office, tailoress Miss Elizabeth Grainger, who was 37 years old and lived in Magdalen Road, Colchester. One year later she bore a son, George, and in 1890 she bore another son called Charles. Elizabeth would have had her hands full as she also had Percy, Edward and Alice at home. However in the 1891 census Percy is working as an errand boy for the “Post”, so he would no doubt have been contributing to the family income. The settled life was due to be sadly disrupted again in 1894, as Elizabeth died that summer.

 

Life must have been hard for the family and so in the spring of 1895 George took yet another wife, a lady by name of Sarah Coe, aged about 38, and they continued to live in Popes Lane. A very posed studio photograph taken of George, Sarah, George, Charles and Alice shows George looking quite an old man in spite of his being only about 50 years old. Percy and Edward have apparently left home, Percy no doubt serving on a Royal Mail ship.

 

Poor Sarah only had five years of marriage, because on 7^th. December1900 57 year old George died in Colchester workhouse infirmary, which was quite near to Popes Lane. Cause of death was given as “Cerebral softening” whatever that might be. His death was registered by soldier son Judah who was stationed in Weymouth, but had obviously come home to visit his dying father.

 

Sarah stayed on in Popes Lane for a time, taking in lodgers for an income to support herself and the two youngest boys. In the 1901 census the lodgers were 20 year old Robert Palmer and 19 year old Edward Larkin, who were both ironworkers. At the end of her life Sarah lived in an Almshouse in Old Heath Rd. Colchester and she died early in 1944, at the age of about eighty seven.

 

*Much of the later history of George was given to me by Patrick Roper, a descendent of Judah, and to whom I am most grateful. Info on Mumfords and Prentice Bros can be found on the internet.