Since my Blog on 12 July about Agnes Bertha Waterhouse and Arthur Betts I have been corresponding with a lovely lady Patricia who lives in Queensland, Australia and is a descendant of this family. She has shared a few more family photos with me that she said I can share with you all and also more information about the family. I have added more to the public family tree on Ancestry. Here’s the link: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/tree/183706850/family?cfpid=322393365919

Amazingly this lady Patricia is the same Patricia who had posted comments on the Birmingham History Forum that I had shared on the blog, I’m so pleased she got in touch with me.

All the following is from Patricia: This is what I have on Arthur Betts and Agnes Bertha’s daughter Gwendoline.  She and her first husband had 3 daughters and 2 sons, all born in Cornwall.   I suspect that the photos you found came from somebody in those families.

I thought you might like to see some photos of my gorgeous little 2 x great-grandmother Ann Plimmer. 

Ann died at 91 years of age, on 22 November 1910 at 136 High Street,
Deritend (Aston) at the home of her daughter Susannah and son-in-law Joseph
Waterhouse. The cause of death was noted as senile decay and syncope. The informant was her son Alfred of 1 Kentish Road, Handsworth, West Midlands.

There is also another little photo of her attached to a few of the Cox/Liggett
public trees in Ancestry.

One of 4 generations, below, is labelled Baxtons Arms – it should be Bartons Arms, which was and still is in High Street, Aston, Birmingham.   

Going back to my Cox ancestors in Wellington, Shropshire many of them, including Frederick’s
mother Elizabeth were nailors/nailers.  Info from ‘Old Occupations’ https://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/glossary/Dictionary-of-Old-Occupations-Index.html#Old-Occupations-N (they cleaned and maintained the teeth on a weaver’s carding machine, or a metalworker who produced nails) This was evidently a terrible “occupation”, a cottage industry carried out by just about the whole family but particularly women and children and very much exploited by the person who employed them.

This photo below is of Susannah and Joseph Waterhouse and some members of their family, taken outside their home on the High Street.  

Name Change. You are correct in your surmise (first blog) – Elizabeth Cox married John Liggitt on 25/1/1825 at Kingswinford. John was a cordwainer/shoemaker with his own business in New Street. In the 1841 census, Frederick Leggitt was with his future wife Ann Plimmer at the home of her sister & brother-in-law Martha & George Bray in Aston. When Frederick & Ann married he was Cox. He gave his father’s name as John Cox, which was stretching the truth a bit. Frederick and Ann’s first 11 children were born in Wellington between 1843-1859 and were baptised as Cox at All Saints. Their abode was noted as Jarratt’s Lane (or variation on spelling). Elizabeth Liggitt, the wife of John Liggitt, shoemaker, died on 22/6/1858 at New Street. John died on 25/11/1859. I assume after John’s death that Frederick & family moved to New Street, taking on the Liggitt name & the business. Whether the name change was legally documented or was informal I don’t know.
Frederick Cox Liggett and Ann Plimmer are my 2 x great-grandparents. My great grandmother Florence Maud Liggitt, their 12th and last child, was born on 1/6/1866 at 43 Cecil Street, Birmingham.

Since my first blog I have also taken the wedding photo out of its frame to send Patricia a better scan via email as she didn’t have a copy, this was in fact a copy in the frame by a photographer in Barnstaple many years ago :

Family History Brickwall. Patricia would also like some help with one of her Ancestors, does anyone have any more information about him that I can pass on? This is what she has so far:

“I have the birth registration details for Joseph Mayo. I just can’t find what happened to him after 1904. This is all I have on him. Joseph Mayo Waterhouse, Joseph and Susannah’s 7th child was born in 1879 in Aston. He was with his parents in the 1881 and 1891 censuses. In the 1901 census, he was a boarder, age 22 at 4 Webster Street, Aston Manor, noted as a tram driver. The Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Soldier Service Records, 1760-1920 show he was a member of the Leicestershire Regiment, Regimental Number 6344, and that he was discharged in1904 at age 24. No further records have been located. It is likely that Joseph emigrated after 1904 and before 1911. He was not mentioned in his father’s will.”

PLUS I have sent her all the pages from Find My Past of Joseph Mayo’s record in the British Army Service Records collection.

You can comment here or send me an email at lynnswaffles@gmail.com

👞🥾🥿👠👡👢

Till next time then……