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- [S58] Other Researchers - Patsy Witchell.
This is a little about the Blockhouse area where Wm and Caroline Worrall were living in 1871. This from researcher.
I can add to the information already supplied about the Blockhouse area. Apparently this area was growing fast in the 1820s - the population doubled between the 1821 & 1831 censuses. St Paul's church, serving the Blockhouse, was completed in 1837. I have a small book on the leather glove industry in Worcester in the 19th century, which shows that over half all glovers (about 80% women workers) lived in the civil parishes of St Martin & St Peter at the time of the 1851 census - I think the Blaockhouse must have been lumped in with St Martin's. I shouldn't think that there was any special reason for the Worralls settling in the Blockhouse apart from the fact that reasonably priced accommodation near to the city centre was to be had there. Bentley's 1841 Directory shows large numbers of boot & shoe makers scattered throughout the city, including a number in the Blockhouse area.
The Worcester glove industry suffered a serious decline after the reduction of tariffs on imported gloves in the 1820s. Many manufacturers left the trade and found alternative employment, including Thomas Price, father of the Victorian novelist Mrs Henry Wood* (n?e Ellen Price), who became a maltster. Incidentally one of Mrs HW's novels concerns itself with gloving in Worcester ('Mrs Haliburton's Troubles'), if you want to find more information. There was a big shake-out, and a few large firms began to dominate the trade - eg Dent, Allcroft & Fownes. The Fownes factory, built in 1884, is now a hotel on the city walls road.
- [S19] BMD - ancestry websites, vol 6A p317.
- [S58] Other Researchers - Patsy Witchell, Marriage Certificate.
Both of Longhope. William said he was a photographer! His father William a coachman, hers John a tailor.
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