Bussey Woodrow

My second great granduncle Bussey Woodrow was born in Fulham, county Middlesex in 1842. He was the first born son of my three times great-grandparents, Bussey Woodrow and Louisa Powell.

Bussey is a unique name, and one I had not heard of in my family history until I received my two times great-grandmother's birth certificate in the post. My first thought on reading the father's name was that it said "Bufsey". Of course, I now realise the written meaning of the double S in transcripts. According to the Ancestry website Bussey means:

English (of Norman origin): habitational name from any of several places in Normandy, France: Boucé in Orne, from which came Robert de Buci mentioned in Domesday Book, Bouce (Manche), or Bucy-le-Long (Aisne). All are named with a Latin personal name Buccius (presumably a derivative of bucca ‘mouth’) + the locative suffix -acum.Altered spelling of German Busse.

I am yet to determine where the name originated from to be used in my family.

Bussey Woodrow was a Letter Carrier, and he lived in various places within the London area including Belgravia, Hanover Square and then later, in Battersea. During his life time he was married three times and had at least five known children. His first wife, Mary Ann, died after they were married for two-and-a-half years. Perhaps she died in childbirth? She was just 25 years old. Around six months later, Bussey married Susannah Catchpole with whom he had five known children, all boys: Harry, Bertie, Walter, Frank and Ernest. Susannah died in 1896, aged 48. The following year Bussey married Emma Chapman.

Bussey joined the British Postal Service on 12 February 1866 as a Letter Carrier. The occupation title was changed to Postman in 1883. This is reflected in the census returns where Bussey's occupation before 1891 was recorded as Letter Carrier and from 1891 onwards, Postman.

The Illustrated London News, 1860
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Today we have airplanes, trains, ferries, motorcycles and motorised vans to deliver all of our mail items across the world. We have a raft of express delivery services, airmail and seamail choices, and vending machines that supply stamps. Before Bussey became a Letter Carrier in the 1860s, horses and coaches were the main method of delivering mail. This was an idea first formed by John Palmer, a theatre owner in Bath, who used carriage services to transport props and actors around the countryside. In 1782 Palmer took his idea of using carriages to transport mail around the country, to London where the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Pitt, accepted the idea and in 1784 an experimental mail coach journey succeeded in paving the way for a faster, more efficient postal delivery service. The development of the railway saw the demise of the mail coaches, with trains first used for delivering mail in 1830. Later in the 19th century, London would also undergo a massive change with the introduction of the Underground rail system.

In Bussey's time as a Letter Carrier he would have walked the congested London streets hand-delivering mail to businesses and residences in his designated area. He would have walked in all elements of weather, including thick fog and snow. His mail bag would have been made of cloth, which attracted mice so most Post Offices had to employ cats to catch and kill the mice. Horses and ponies were used to deliver mail up and down the country even after the demise of the mail coaches as they pulled the mail carts and vans until the 1930s when motorised vehicles replaced a great many horse-drawn vans (except, of course, for the more remote areas). The last horse-drawn mail van was seen in London in 1949. Bicycles did not become fully popular until the 20th century.

Horse-drawn Mail Cart, 1887
www.postalheritage.org.uk

Bussey Woodrow died in May 1905, aged 68. He was buried at West Norwood Cemetery in Lambeth. Among the notable burials there are Isabella Beeton, Sir Henry Tate and Dr William Marsden. In 1911 Bussey's widow, Emma Woodrow, was living with her sister Sarah in Kentish Town, St Pancras. It is believed that Emma Woodrow died in 1913 (Wandsworth area) but she could have died in 1928 in St Pancras. Bussey's brother, Frederick John Powell Woodrow, lived in Putney which is an area most familiar to my maternal family history. My two times great-grandmother Louisa Woodrow, who was Bussey and Frederick's sister, also lived there as a married woman.

If you have any Postal Service ancestors, I urge you to visit The British Postal Museum & Archive at http://www.postalheritage.org.uk/. There is so much to see there, and it includes just about everything you would ever want to know about the postal service. It has sections for family history, school and further education and provides an extensive history of the Royal Mail dating back to the 1600s.

Joseph Powell 1786 - 1857 : Thames Waterman

Anybody who knows me well, knows that I am an avid admirer of Charles Dickens and his literary works. In 1998 the ABC aired the serial adaptation of 'Our Mutual Friend'. Being a fan of the actor Steven Mackintosh it was added incentive to tune in!

It was not for another 4 years that I discovered that one of my own ancestors was a waterman on the Thames. In that very moment, my favourite Charles Dickens book was thrust into sharper focus and exuberant reality. My very own my family history could tell the tale of the 'Great Stink' of London, the daily menace of gridlocked water traffic and demanding customers, and London's dead found in the River.

My 4 x great-grandfather Joseph Powell was baptised at St Paul's Church in Hammersmith in 1786, son of Bartholomew Powell. When he was 15, in 1802, Joseph was apprenticed to Nicholas Taylor. Joseph was bound to him for a full seven years until he qualified as a Waterman of the Thames in 1809.

Men like Joseph Powell were especially skilled as rowers and as navigators and as tidesmen. So skilled was this job that the Company of Watermen Guild was set up in 1555 and later in 1700, the Thames Lightermen amalgamated with the Watermen (The difference between the Thames Watermen and the Thames Lightermen was that the Watermen carried passengers and the Lightermen carried goods). Once Joseph had completed his apprenticeship and could work alone fully qualified, he had to apply to obtain a license from the Port of London Authority who issued him with a numbered badge which, by law, was sewn onto his coat sleeve. He would have then purchased or hired for himself a Wherry or Skiff to carry his passengers and he was responsible for keeping his boat in sound working order at all times.

Strict rules were in place by the Watermen’s Guild which ordered that Watermen not consume any alcohol whilst ‘on the job’ but despite this, they still had a reputation for being extremely obnoxious, uncouth, abusive and foul-mouthed. Come on! I think they had to be given the circumstances, don’t you? You have to remember that in the early centuries there was no sewerage systems in place and all raw effluent of the London populus went straight into the Thames so the Watermen were - pardon the pun - 'in the thick of it' all day every day!
Add to that the fact that the Thames was extremely busy all the time, filled with navy and merchant ships, cargo ships, ferries, Lighter barges, as well as their fellow Watermen. It would have been utter stinking chaos! Other foul conditions were things like floods, mud, slime, sludge, stench, rats, other people’s diseases and infections, even dead bodies were sometimes found. That’s not to mention the weather conditions!


By the 1760s there were well over a thousand ‘Hackney hell-carts’ as the Watermen had dubbed them, and it was causing considerable congestion. London streets couldn’t cope with the demand, and the increasing bottle-neck and deaths through accidents meant something had to give. London needed bridges to ease traffic flow and enforce safety for its people. You could imagine the outcry from the Watermen.
Until 1750 there was only one bridge in London and even that had caused upset when it was put in place hundreds of years before there was any talk of subsequent bridges being built in London. When Westminster Bridge was built in 1750 the Watermen strongly opposed and lobbied their case in Parliament but over time, they were defeated. The Watermen’s further appeals made even less impact as the years went on, causing only temporary delays but in the end they just could not prevent the building of bridges. The Watermen were losing the fight for their livelihood as the demand for road traffic ease grew ever stronger.



My 4 x great-grandfather Joseph Powell endured, through the extremes of weather, inestimable stink and traffic congestion. His daily route took him from Fulham, where he lived on the High Street with his wife and family, to his final destination at Hungerford Stairs  (yet another connection with Charles Dickens!).

According to the 1819 Post Office Directory his stops would have been:

Queenhithe
The Globe Wharf
Hungerford Stairs

The 1826 Pigots Directory water conveyance listing from FULHAM:

King's Arms, Rose and Crown, Queenhithe, Waterman's Arms & Globe Wharf, Hungerford

A few good reasons to stop for alcoholic refreshments in amongst that list, wouldn't you say?!
I may be ridiculed for having a rather nostalgic, or even romantic, viewpoint of my ancestor Joseph Powell, but I would dearly love to have known him. He could well have been quite a feisty character like Gaffer Hexam, or calculating and cunning like Rogue Riderhood. He would have to have been a good mix of both to abide the stink of the Thames!

Lizzie and Gaffer Hexam in 'Our Mutual Friend'

For further reading on the life of a Thames Waterman you may like to search out Robert Cottrell and Christopher O'Riordan's meticulous works, and you may also like to read the great novels of Charles Dickens and Clare Clark for further inspiration! x