Yes, that's my g-g-grandfather, with his first wife Alice Taylor, who was from Ross-on-Wye. Their son William James was my great-grandfather. Thank you for the census returns on James and Mary, that looks like the right family :-) I just have to trace them back further, and I think a couple of days exploring the Forest of Dean are called for too! I now need to look for James' marriage to Mary, and find out who his parents are; I've also been reading some information on the tin plate works at Redbrook to see what they were actually doing as 'tin rollers'.

And there's also a theory that Tom, who ended up in Sharpness in 1879 (when his marriage occurred), may have been working on the construction of the Severn rail bridge, so I will explore that too. Tom had a varied career - he worked as a dock labourer in Sharpness, then became landlord of the Fox Inn near Berkeley, and ended up running a coffee house on Sharpness Docks with his second wife Kate.

Thanks again for the response!