The wedding in 1945 of my mother's half-sister May Finch to Albert Pugh.  My father, John Glover, is standing behind the bride.
My family gallery
  • Rhyl 1946

    My parents, Gwen and John Glover, with me at Rhyl - Dad had just been demobilised from the RAF.


  • Shelton

    Mary Shelton, born at Wheaton Aston, Shropshire, in 1796, married Robert Fenn in 1816, and died at Wolverhampton in 1883.



  • Bratt

    Jane Bratt, born at Bilston in 1821, married Samuel Fenn in 1840, and died at Pool Hayes in 1874.


  • Fenn

    Samuel Fenn (1817-1878), proprietor of Pool Hayes colliery, photographed c.1870.


  • Johnson

    Johnson family wedding at Alma Street, Wolverhampton, 1910.  Elsie Slade Johnson, daughter of Henry Allen Johnson, married Joseph Beedle.


  • Tufft

    My great-aunt Comfort Tufft, who married Harry Eccleston in 1922.  Comfort was a sister of Emma, born in 1887, the eldest child of William & Mary Jane Tufft. Emma worked as housemaid to George Ramsay, the celebrated secretary-manager of Aston Villa football club, and disappeared in mysterious circumstances following the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.


  • Bradley

    Dorah, wife of William Bradley, and their children Thomas, Dorah, Hannah, John, Alfred and Minnie - Chesterfield c.1882.  (Photo reproduced with permission.)


  • Bradley - 2

    The oldest of the Bradley children, Dorah, around the time of her marriage in 1885 to Richard Hicks, who became a well-known Chesterfield grocer.


  • Fowler

    Members of the Fowler family c.1955 at a family wedding at Penn Fields, Wolverhampton. 


  • Fowler - 2

    My parents, John Glover and Gwendoline Fowler, married in 1941.


  • Shale

    William Shale, born at Bilston in 1828, was a son of John Shale who emigrated to the USA in 1835.  (Photo reproduced with permission.)


  • Glover

    Photographed at Wolverhampton Road, Walsall, c.1907 - Elizabeth Fitch Glover (left), her daughter Amelia Moss (seated centre) and Amelia's children Howard (front) and Beatrice (right).



  • Glover - 2

    My grandfather John Glover standing behind my grandmother Annie Eyre (seated right) with other family members c.1912.

     


  • Glover - 3

    Edgar Victor Fitch Glover, born at Walsall in 1887, was my grandfather's younger brother.


WELCOME TO MY FAMILY'S HISTORY...

My grandad died in 1929 when he was 49. Apart from the stark facts of his life – birth, marriage, children, occupation – one of the very few personal things I know about him is that when he was surprised by something, apparently he used to exclaim, "well, dog bite old Roper".

Where did he get that expression? Maybe he heard it from his own father or grandfather - who knows.  It's certainly original.

My other grandad died in 1920 when he was 46, leaving a young widow and a year-old baby. The only quirky thing I know about him is that when she was a child my mother once met his ghost coming down the stairs and was asked, "don’t you know who I am? I’m your father".

So, this site is about my family and its history, all those interconnected links going way, way back through the centuries. It’s also an acknowledgement and a thank you to them all.

As far as I know, none of my forebears was very important outside their own immediate circle. Some were richer than others; but (except for one or two) not by much. And the majority of them lived out their existence amid the noise and grime of the industrial Midlands and died prematurely of disease, so in that respect they didn’t take up too much space in the scheme of things.

Whatever lost graves their remains rest in, I hope I’ve done a bit to put the flesh back on their old bones and restore some memory of them; because however small and ordinary their lives may have been, but for them I and my own descendants wouldn’t exist - and come to think of it, I guess neither would hundreds of others alive now whom I’ve never met but to whom I’m related by the same not very blue genes.

So here is the history of my family through its various branches. If anyone recognises the names of their own forebears, I’d be happy to hear from you. After all, we’re all links in the same chain. If you'd like to get in touch, please email me at oak2acorn@aol.com.

Judith Lloyd
née Glover


Note: census information on these pages is Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk.