Tag: postcard

A Week at Bricett

Postcard sent in 1929 featuring the interior of Great Bricett Church

This postcard shows the interior of Great Bricett church, facing the altar.

The stamp shows the postcard was received/processed at Great Bricett post office on 16 September 1929, and was addressed to:

Miss Edith Robinson
Trickers Green
Combs
Nr Stowmarket
Suffolk

The note reads:

Dear Edie
We are just having a week at Bricett. How is the harvest work going on
Dearest Love,
Ruth

Reverse of the postcard sent 1929

Fortunately, I was able to find an Edith Robinson living at Trickers Green, Combs in 1911, who just happened to have a younger sister named Ruth. The girls, their parents, and their brothers were all born in Combs meaning there was no apparent connection to Great Bricett.

However Ruth uses ‘we’, and since further investigation shows she married in 1920, it seemed highly likely her travel companion was her husband.

And this is where the Bricett connection lies – Ruth’s husband, Stanley Kitchener Barton, was born in Great Bricett.

Baptism of Stanley Kitchener Barton in 1900

Stanley was born and baptised in Great Bricett, as were both his parents, Willie Barton and Eliza Sayers. His parents had even stood at the altar featured in the postcard when they married in 1891.

Marriage of Willie Barton and Eliza Sayer in 1891

Willie and Eliza lived almost their entire lives in Great Bricett. After Eliza died in 1936, Willie appears to have lived with daughter Evelyn for a time at Great Blakenham, before becoming a patient at Stow Lodge Hospital in Onehouse, and apparently dying there 1940. Willie and Eliza are both buried in Bricett churchyard.

Stanley and Ruth married at Combs in 1920 and settled at Woodbridge where Stanley worked as a chauffeur and motor driver. His father, Willie, had worked as a groom and domestic coachman, so Stanley’s career seems to have followed the modern progression of the trade.

When the postcard was sent in 1929, the couple were likely staying with Stanley’s parents on New Road (now B1078).

More details of Stanley Barton and his family can be found on WikiTree

Research Note: In the 1891 census, Eliza was recorded as a servant in the Makens household at Ringshall, while Willie was recorded as a visitor of Eliza’s parents at Great Bricett. They would marry later that year. In 1921, Willie was recorded as an employee of Miss K. Makens, Ringshall.

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A sepia postcard picturing 2 boys stand leaning on a fence in front of a church, marked 'BRICETT CHURCH' and 'P W FINTER Photo NEEDHAM MKT'
Postcard sent in 1906 featuring the church of Great Bricett
The above postcard was shared with me recently, featuring a photograph of two children standing in front of Great Bricett church.
The stamp on the reverse side shows that the postcard was received/processed by Chiswick post office on 16 June 1906, and was addressed to:
Mrs Gomm
4 Hogarth Lane
Chiswick
The note reads:
Dear Mum
Just a card to wish you many Happy Returns of Your Birthday & also ask you if you remember this spot where the Millers daughter was turned into your bundle of worry and mine
Ernest
Reverse of used post card with Chiswick. W postmark (9.45AM JU 16 06)
Reverse of the postcard sent 16 June 1906
The sender was Ernest Albert Gomm, a postman from London, who married miller’s daughter, Cinderella Clark. Cinderella was the daughter of Aber John Clark, who was the miller at Bricett Mill, as was his father before him.
The ‘bundle of worry’, Cinderella, was born ‘up the road’ in Barking (Suffolk) while her father was running the mill there, but Abner was born in Great Bricett (likely in Mill House). Her family appears to have been in Barking between (roughly) 1868 to 1880 before returning to run the mill at Bricett.
Part of an 1891 census page showing the Clark family at Bricett Mill.
Cinderella Clark recorded with her family at Bricett Mill in the 1891 census

Ernest was born in Buckinghamshire but appeared to live most of his early life in Chiswick, London – at the address on the postcard even – 4 Hogarth Lane.

A marriage entry from a parish register
Marriage record of Ernest & Cinderella in the Great Bricett parish registers
They married in Great Bricett church (as referenced in the postcard) on 3 October 1900, and the couple set up home together in Chiswick. They were recorded just around the corner from ‘mum’ in the 1901 census the following year, on Mawson Lane.
c1912 map showing Hogarth and Mawson Lanes

At the time Ernest sent this postcard, the couple had just one child, Gilbert Walter, but the next year, their daughter Grace Minna would arrive. I’d love to know why Cinderella was referred to as a ‘bundle of worry’ – I like to think it was a term used affectionately.

What a wonderful personal insight into their lives!
More details of Cinderella Clark and her family can be found on WikiTree
A note on the photograph:
The photographer was Percival Walter Finter – a ‘native of Needham Market’ who opened a business as a photographer and hairdresser in Bildeston in 1906. As the mark says Needham Market, I would presume the photo was taken before then. He was working as a grocer’s assistant in Ipswich in 1901 so we can probably narrow the date of the photograph down to between 1901 and 1906.

How I’d love to know who the boys were posing out the front!

 

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