🏇🏻William C Aldridge💕Ada P Richards🧵

Not much to go on with this Cabinet Card old photo. It just says ‘William & Ada Aldridge’ on the back.

I liked the look of the couple, and it was taken by a photographer in Exeter in the West Country, so I bought it.

I entered Aldridge. William. With spouse Ada in on the search for marriages on FreeBMD, and there was just one in Exeter!

It’s the 1887 marriage that fits my couple.

So now reverse the search and that gives me Ada’s full name.

I initially thought that the photo was taken about 1890, so now that I know the couple married in the last quarter of 1887. They had their first child on 18 July 1890. It makes me think that they may have had the photo taken when they married, owing to her corsage on her dress, or when they found out they were expecting a new addition to their family.

Henry Faulkner White. Photographer.

The following information is from the ’Fading Images’ website (Cambridgeshire):

In 1871, Henry F White was a photographer in Plymouth, boarding at 16 Oxford Place, Plymouth. In 1881, Henry F White, a photographic assistant, was a lodger in Leicester. Henry Faulkner White appears as a photographer in trade directories for Cambridge in 1883 and 1884. In August 1884, he was adjudged a bankrupt, stating that takings from the business in Cambridge in the five months to Jan 1884 were no more than £50.

It seems likely that Henry was in Cambridge from 1879 to 1885, from the dates and places of birth of his children recorded in the 1891 census. Henry’s studio at 47 St Andrews Street was taken over by photographers Scott and Wilkinson in either 1884 or 1885. By 1891, Henry Faulkner White was a photographer at 174 Sidwell Street, Exeter. His family comprised his wife Harriet b:1846 Leicester, daughter Agnes M.M. b: 1879 Cambridge, son Harry b:1881 Cambridge, son Arthur F b:1883 Cambridge and daughter Dora b:1885 Cambridge.

No trace of the family can be found in the 1901 census, but in 1911, Henry and Harriett, assisted by daughter Dora, were running a boarding house at 3 Morton Crescent, Exmouth. It then appears that Henry and his wife split – she went off to Canada with other members of the family in September 1913.

Then there was a terrible tragedy in Exeter in March 1914, where Henry Faulkner White, then described as a former Exeter photographer, reported to be 67 years of age and fallen upon hard times, committed suicide by taking poison, together with 24-year-old Annie Rowe, a young woman of his acquaintance who was a former employee of Henry’s wife. The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of murder and suicide against Henry. (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, Friday 06 March 1914, page 7).”

I was able to start a family tree on Ancestry with the couple’s full names and, as always, gradually added the wider family, parents, siblings and children.

William & Ada Aldridge.
A Family Story.

William Charles Aldridge and Ada Perriam Richards began life in different counties, different landscapes, and different kinds of households, yet their paths would quietly converge in the cathedral city of Exeter, where they would build a life together that lasted half a century.

William arrived first, born on 29 February 1864, a rare leap-year child, in Woolwich, Kent, to Edwin (a Waiter then later a resident Steward at a Club), and Susan Aldridge. He was the eldest son, soon followed by a sister and three younger brothers. By the time the family settled in Exeter, he was already learning a trade that would shape the rest of his life: saddlery and harness making, skilled, practical work in an age when horses powered the world.

Four years before William’s birth, in April 1860, Ada Perriam Richards was born in Taunton, Somerset, to Rueben Richards, a Printer/Pressman, and Caroline Ann Perriam. She was the youngest of four daughters born to Rueben and Caroline. At only fourteen, she lost her mother, a sorrow that must have forced her into adulthood sooner than expected.

By her early twenties, Ada was supporting herself in Exeter, boarding in St Sidwell and working as an assistant in a sewing machine shop. The steady hum of machines and careful stitching filled her days. She was independent, capable, and used to earning her own way.

Not far away, William was shaping leather instead of fabric, cutting, stitching, and fitting harness and tack. Both worked with their hands. Both understood patience and craftsmanship. It seems fitting that two such practical, hardworking people should find one another.

On December 26, 1887, Ada, aged twenty-seven, and William, aged twenty-three, were married in Exeter.

Their married life began modestly but steadily. Within a few years, William was listed as head of the household, and Ada as wife, long hours in the workshop for him, constant home-making, mending and managing for her.

Their home soon filled with children’s voices.

In 1890, their first daughter, Olive Marion, was born. Eight years later came Ivy Doris. The girls grew up surrounded by the smells of leather and polish, thread and starch, a household shaped by skilled hands and honest work.

William’s trade prospered. From saddler’s son, he became a master saddler in business for himself, a respected craftsman. Ada kept everything else running: the cooking, cleaning, clothing, budgeting, and care that held the family together. By 1921, her occupation was simply recorded as “home duties,” but in truth, it was the invisible labour that made everything possible.

William lost his father in 1897 and his mother in 1902. Ada had already buried both her parents years before. Together, they became the older generation, the ones others depended on.

Then came the deepest grief of all. In August 1923, their youngest daughter, Ivy Doris, died at just twenty-five. Her cause of death is described as Pleurisy/Cardiac Disease. No census or certificate can convey the heartbreak of that loss.

I found this newspaper article about Ivy from 1915; she was a talented Musician.

Through changing times, the coming of motorcars, the Great War, and the slow fading of the horse trade. William continued his craft. Eventually, he retired, the tools set down after a lifetime of labour.

By then, they had shared fifty years of marriage, half a century of ordinary mornings, shared meals, quiet evenings, and steadfast companionship. The kind of long partnership built on reliability and care.

Ada died first, on 14 March 1938, aged seventy-seven, and was buried in Exeter, the city that had truly been her home. William, now a widower, lived only a few more years. He died on 14 January 1941 at seventy-six.

Daughter Olive became an Elementary School Teacher and didn’t marry until quite late in life, she never had any children of her own.

They had started life miles apart, Somerset and Kent, but both found their place in Devon. There they worked, loved, endured loss, and raised the next generation.

Their story is about two working people who built a steady home, practised their trades with pride, and stayed side by side for fifty years.