💕The Evans & Proctor Family Wedding💒

I bought this old photo at the Exeter Antique and Flea Market in October 2025.

Held at the Matford Centre (Matford Park Rd, Marsh Barton, Exeter, Devon, EX2 8FD). There’s Free parking, dogs allowed, and an on-site restaurant. Indoor & outdoor sellers.

I really love old wedding photos, especially large groups. So when I saw this beautiful photo I just had to buy it.

Everyone just looks so beautifully dressed & those bridesmaids are gorgeous.

You can often work out who’s who in the group, groom’s family on his side, and bride’s family on her side is usually the norm.

But sometimes one family member steps in to balance out the photo, as in this case.

So many different names written on the back too.

Harry. Mrs Evans. Beatrice.

Grandma & Grandpa Proctor.

Arthur Evans – Gertie.

? ? ? Dorrie ?

I have no idea why someone had pencilled in 1922, as it’s so much earlier than that.

I was thinking about 1905-1908. So I decided to assume that the person that wrote the names would have been a child of the bride and groom. Because they say grandma and grandpa Proctor. So Gertie most likely was a Proctor.

I looked for a Marriage on FreeBMD between 1904 and 1909 for a Proctor who married a chap called Arthur Evans. Just the one result!

So then I reversed my search. Arthur William Evans.

Now I had both full names is was a good start to building up a family tree for the couple.

I came to a bit of a stumbling block over Arthurs father’s name. It’s so easy to get the wrong person with a common surname like Evans. So I decided to buy the digital version of his birth record. Arthur Edward Evans.

Arthur William Evans digital birth record from the GRO.

But as you can see, there is a discrepancy between these two records, birth above and marriage below, of Arthur William Evans’ father’s name.

I decided that I would provisionally take the birth record as the correct name, as his father actually registered the birth, so he was there at the time. Whereas he had died before the marriage occurred, so it’s understandable that the record may be incorrect.

Arthur & Gertie’s marriage record from Ancestry.

To confirm Arthur’s father’s name, I looked for his parents’ marriage record. Surprise, surprise, that gave me another variation of his name!

You would think that maybe this one is correct.

So knowing that he was deceased before Arthur and Gertie’s marriage I searched for a possible death, and I found it, just two years after Arthur’s birth. Alfred Edwin Evans, aged 26. So young!

EVANS Alfred Edwin 26 Birmingham 6d 120

Cause of Death: Cardiac Vascular Disease.

Now I could look for his birth record on FreeBMD, and I was able to find that in the last quarter of 1858.

Evans Alfred Edwin Birmingham 6d 153

More information on the GRO tells us his mother’s maiden name was Perkins.

EVANS, ALFRED EDWIN PERKINS
GRO Reference: 1858 D Quarter in BIRMINGHAM Volume 06D Page 153.

So three records confirm that he was actually Alfred Edwin Evans.

While I was going through all the records in my research on Ancestry I noticed a public family tree with some matching people, although not totally correct, it had some super pictures shared on it.

So I went straight to the tree, looked at what was in the media file, and was so surprised to find a copy of my old photo of Arthur and Gertie’s wedding. Along with lots of really interesting bits of information, including documents and photos.

You can just read on the bottom left corner that Harry named on my photo back, was actually Arthur Henry Proctor. Who had stood on the Evans side of the photo next to the groom’s mother to balance the photo up. The other names in the photo typed up at the bottom confirming my research.

This note had been written in the profile of Gertie on the tree:

“For the first few years of their marriage they lived at Hall Green, Birmingham and then by 1927 they moved into “The Stockings” Codsall, Wolverhampton, where they remained for many years.

Auntie Gertie will always be remembered for her elegance, her beautiful clothes and above all, her immense energy, and she received her telegram from the Queen.”

This lovely photo of Gertie was also on the tree.

Arthur and Gerties Family Story.

Arthur William Evans and Josephine Gertrude Bartlett Proctor began a journey together that spanned over four decades.

Born on October 28, 1882, in Birmingham to Alfred Edwin Evans and Mary Jane Allso, Arthur experienced early sorrow when his father passed away in October 1884 at just twenty-six years old, leaving Mary Jane to raise young Arthur as a young mother.

Meanwhile, down in Highworth, Wiltshire, Josephine Gertrude Bartlett Proctor entered the world on February 1, 1882, to parents Edwin Francis and Alice Proctor, growing up alongside several siblings in a household that eventually moved through Wiltshire and into the bustling neighborhoods of London and Surrey.

On April 18, 1908, at St. Augustine’s Church in Bermondsey, Surrey, paths converged when Arthur and Josephine married. He was twenty-five and she was twenty-six.

Their early years together were marked by rapid growth and changing landscapes across the Midlands.

By March 1909, their first child, Marjorie Josephine, arrived in Solihull, followed by Arthur Roy in 1911.

Around this time, the young family settled in Yardley, Worcestershire, where Arthur worked as a manager of horticultural sundries, immersing himself in the green trade that would shape much of his working life.

The family continued to expand amidst the turbulent backdrop of the First World War and its aftermath.

Son Dick Bartlett was born in 1918, followed by daughter Peggy Maureen in April 1921.

By this time, the household had moved to Smethwick, Staffordshire, where Arthur managed a nursery and seedsman business.

The family’s circle was completed in July 1927 with the arrival of their youngest daughter, Wendy Alison Jane, born in Wolverhampton when Arthur was forty-four and Josephine was forty-five.

Across eighteen years, they had welcomed five children, creating a lively, enduring anchor through changing decades.

As the children grew and married, with Marjorie, Arthur Roy, Dick, Peggy, and Wendy all stepping into their own adult lives during the 1930s and 1940s.

The five children of Arthur and Josephine all eventually stepped into married life between 1936 and 1952, beginning with Arthur Roy, who married Adela Lizzette Silvester in Birmingham in January 1936, just months before his eldest sister, Marjorie, wed John L. McCowern in Staffordshire that April.

Four years later, Dick Bartlett married Lilian M. Reade in Wolverhampton in July 1940, establishing a partnership that would last over six decades.

Following the Second World War, Peggy Maureen married Oswald Patrick John Rochfort in Gloucestershire in July 1946.

Arthur transitioned into retirement, noted in the 1939 register as a retired nurseryman living in Staffordshire alongside Josephine, who kept house.

Arthur passed away on January 28, 1952, in Wolverhampton at the age of sixty-nine, after forty-three years of marriage to Josephine.

Finally, the youngest child married after her father’s death in 1952: Wendy Alison Jane wed Philip Arthur Wilkins in Bilston that April.

Here’s the link to my small tree of the family Evans and Proctor on Ancestry: Arthur Evans/Proctor Family Tree

True to her remarkable endurance, Josephine lived past the century mark, passing away on October 17, 1983, at the age of 101 in Colwall, Herefordshire, leaving behind a sprawling legacy of children, grandchildren, and the deep-set roots of a remarkable family history.

This copy of her telegram from the Queen was also shared on the public tree, great to see.

The Proctors. Edwin Francis Proctor.

Also on the public family tree are many other interesting documents and lots more photos of the family. I’m sharing just a few here, but if you have a connection to this family, then it’s well worth contacting the owner of the tree and also having a look through their media file for the tree, where you can view everything. It’s a great collection. Link below.