Do you remember Samuel, the boy who drove a milk cart 24 miles a day selling milk for 8 cents a quart? As he finished one job and looked for another he kept getting farther away from his home. Men often have to move to a different town so they can find work, and that’s what happened to Samuel. When he was 17 he had an offer of a job in the northwest of England in Cheshire [county], near the town of Chester, which was quite a way north of Hanley Castle. It was about three times the wages he had ever been offered so he took it and stayed around the same place for four years.
You might like to know that “Chester” is the Roman word for “camp,” so when you look at a map of England, towns or cities with “chester”or “cester” in their names means they were once the site of a camp during Roman times. Examples are Winchester, Manchester, and Worcester.
Samuel said, “I had never lived in a town up to this time and never had mixed in bad company, a thing I have since been very thankful for. Most of my life up to this time I had attended religious meetings of various denominations and perhaps was a little partial to the Wesleyans with whom I had had much experience, probably on account of my father taking up with them.”
While he was working at a place named Allostock, he met a young woman who was also working at the farms. Her name was Sarah Webb. They enjoyed each other’s company and spent a lot of time together. As Sam describes, “after talking silly nothings for about two years we decided to get married.”
So they left the rural life and went to the city of Birmingham to join his sister Alice who was also married. She made an appointment and handed in their names to the church of that district for the Banns to be read. Reading of the Banns was a custom of asking in church for three Sundays before the marriage if there was anyone who knew of any reason why the couple should not be married, and if so, he or she must make it known, or thereafter hold their peace forever.
“As there was no objections raised, not even by my wife [to be],” Sam said, “we got married on Christmas morning, 1893, at Saint Catherine’s Church, Schofield Street, Birmingham.” He was nearly twenty-one years old and she was seventeen.
The bride and groom moved in with Alice and her husband, Tom Cooke. They soon found they had some challenges. Work was very scarce at this time, and Sam wandered around the city for five weeks before he found work at a furniture store. It didn’t pay much so he took on a side job soliciting life insurance for the Royal London Friendly Society. Going door to door trying to sell life insurance to people in with whom he was acquainted made him uncomfortable, but he had set out to do it even though it took a lot of courage. Sarah’s health was poor. She gave birth to a baby boy who only lived two days.
Before long Sam’s brother-in-law invited him to get a place of his own, so Sam and Sally (as she was called) found a small house, No. 4 at the rear of Clifton Road, Aston. They had very little income and Sam said, “I had to furnish it on credit as best I could, [but] it was our own palace and we felt happy even if we were poor.”
Eventually Sam became a sub-collector in the insurance business which gave him a steady income. Sarah’s health was poor. She had given birth to a baby boy, Roy, who only lived two days. Samuel’s brother, George, who was living in Cheshire, wrote and told him he would do much better in the Chemical Works than in insurance, so Sam and Sally packed up their belongings and moved to Cheshire. Sam worked there for three years, then he got a letter from the owner of the insurance business he had worked for with an offer to purchase part of his business with the promise of becoming his assistant as soon as he required one. There were two in line for this promotion, but at the end of three years, both had failed to qualify and Sam was given the position. In the meantime another son, Samuel Darcie, was born, and then a daughter, Millicent Phoebe.
Now Samuel had a better job and he and Sally had two living children; they were a happy little family.
This map shows some of the major cities of England and Wales. When Sam bot the job at Allostock Farms he had to travel quite a distance from his home in Hanley Castle near the River Severn, and go north to Chester which is just below Liverpool, England, and the Manchester Ship Canal. After he married Sally, they moved to Birmingham which is more west-central England. As you will see, more adventures of the family take place in Birmingham and Liverpool, England, and Swansea, Wales.1
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