FOX, Henry and James, continued (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, September 08, 2016, 21:45 (2999 days ago) @ Carl

Dear "Cousin" Jeff

My head hurts when I try to get the detail on "cousin"!

James is my great grandfather's brother. It appears there were 3 brothers who went to New Zealand: Henry, Sidney and Richard.

I think it was Harriett who married a Pace.

I am struck by the fecundity of the family around this time. Ten kids is a lot for anyone.

Could you let me know if I can access the parish records online?

Also, do you have any old pictures of Barnhill or any idea of the housing? On google maps they are semi-detached from this century. I wonder about the kind of life a miner with a large family would have survived at this time. Did a lot of people from the Forest of Dean emigrate to New Zealand around 1900? So many questions. If I did visit the area, do you where would be best to visit in terms of getting an impression of the lives people would have led?

Carl

Dear "Cousin" Carl.

don't worry about that revelation, if we go back far enough I think most Dean Foresters are probably "related" to some degree... it was a remote # secluded area with not a lot to do after dark... Which leads me to thank you for introducing me to a great "new" word. Yes, fecundity (wow!) wasn't too rare in those days, it surprised me too when I started looking up my tree but in fact large families were quite normal for the working classes in the days before family planning etc, especially as that could mean more earners. I mentioned my paternal grandmother, a Lydbrook Taylor, to our surprise she was the youngest of eleven, spread across 26 years, her father was one of eight, etc... Not saying such large families were the norm, but I don't think they were that unusual either.

# Less so now, but for centuries the Dean was a remote place, William the Conqueror made it as far as Gloucester, but like even the Romans before him, wasn't keen to risk climbing into the wild Forest area. As recently as the late 70s young Foresters were often met with hostility for being "backwoods roughnecks" when we went to the "big city" of Gloucester all of 15 miles away !.

I think you're right re Harriet & Pace(Page?), her name sounds familiar re my browsing across the Fox's Census returns.

This forum has seen countless examples of Foresters travelling many miles to find work in other mining areas (or the associated metalworking industries; initially across Britain, and then across the world to the USA, NZ etc as those territories were found to also have raw mineral deposits. Some families returned, many stayed, hence the forum routinely receives many queries from t'other side of the world.

Until last year the FoD Parish Records were only available online via the transcripts on this website. If anyone thinks they may be in error, the site’s admin staff can be asked to check the original PR, which I think are usually in photographic form as the originals are held at Gloucester Archives and such like. Last year Gloster Archives linked-up with Ancestry, so photo images of the actual PRs can now be seen and downloaded from that site.

Re the housing at Barnhill and Broadwell, originally it would be wooden cabins built by the woodmen/quarrymen/miners themselves, which by the 1800s had become cottages using locally-quarried stone, then (post War) brickbuilt 2 storey semi’s etc built by developers, the British Land Society, or local authority “council”; the British History site as mentioned in my earlier post details this, certainly no tower blocks of flats etc in the Forest !. The various old Ordnance Survey maps give an idea of the “random” nature of the Forest’s towns, during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s the Forest’s desirable mineral wealth caused an explosion in population, often without any civic planning as such, hence it's rather random appearance especially in the older villages..
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadwell,_Forest_of_Dean

Regarding the British History website, it's a truly excellent resource but can seem a little disjointed in it's layout, so for any given section it's best to word-search the text for, in this case, "Broadwell".
The section best describing Broadwell's housing can be found about 2/3 down the "Settlement" page; search here
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol5/pp300-325
Also search this page
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol5/pp117-138#h3-0003

For old photos this site has an excellent Gallery section worth browsing, plus the Sungreen site I’ve already mentioned, these will give you a good idea of the topography and townships of the FoD, plus Google Streetview etc. Also the excellent old photos books by Humphrey Phelps, but these tend to feature people and workplaces rather than general housing.
Also see https://www.francisfrith.com/broadwell,christchurch,gloucestershire

This forum has been operating for many years now, so it’s highly likely that any general questions you may have eg "NZ migrants" or "Dean tourism", have already been answered; please just use the forum search facility, some examples are below. To get an idea about the way our ancestors lived in the past there are some well-known books that you can probably find in your local library, or buy online, (think of authors such as Winifred Foley, Joyce Latham, Phelps and Dennis Potter), and when you do visit make sure you go to the Dean Heritage museum at Soudley.

Hoping this helps, Jeff

PS In case you've not already found out, be warned that most internet searches for "Broadwell" will take you to the very different village of the same name in the Cotswolds end of our beautiful and varied county.

For general info such as tourism and books see the links section of this site, which has several great pages including;
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/joomla/index.php/links/20-books
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/joomla/index.php/links/23-forest-people

Prior threads which should help you re the above queries include:

(Books)
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=39806
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/fodmembers/index.php?id=46782

(Visiting)
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/fodmembers/index.php?id=41340
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?mode=entry&id=33227

(Emigration to NZ etc)
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=31551
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=25374

and so on...