On the 21st of March 1724 in the parish of Denham in Buckinghamshire Richard and Elizabeth Alderman baptised their son John. Some years later, still in Denham, that John and his wife Mary baptised their own son on the 15th of October 1752. They decided to name their son John too. People were not very imaginative in those days.
Within a couple of decades young John had travelled all the way from Denham to Chalfont St. Peter. Although it is no more than five miles people walked a lot slower in those days.
On the 31st of October in 1775 John Alderman married Ann Baxter in Chalfont St. Peter and this is where the story begins. It is not a unique story nor in anyway special. It is occasionally a story of hardship, of illegitimate births and frequent deaths of babies and children; none of which should be considered exceptional. For the next two and a bit centuries there were Aldermans in Chalfont St. Peter. Someone once observed that we die twice: once when our life ends and again when we are forgotten. Let us remember some of them for a little longer.
John and Ann had several children die within their first year of life: John (1777), Ann (1782), Mary (1788 - 1789), Daniel (1793). At the time when around half the children born would not survive in to adulthood such loses would have seemed normal. It is only in recent times that such deaths have significantly declined.
John and Ann had several children that survived their infancy. One of which was William (1776 - 1839) who married Susannah Smith (1776 -1853) although they were both from Chalfont there is no record of them marrying in Chalfont. There is a marriage of William Alderman and Susannah Smith on the 30th July 1798 in Hillingdon, Middlesex, almost 10 miles away, which may be them. William worked as a shoemaker and it is that fact, being mentioned on both their death certificates, that ties him and Susannah together.
Disentangling the records we can find at least three of their children born in Chalfont. Deborah (1804), George (1812), Sophia (1817). George
worked as a watercress grower. Watercress beds had been established right along the river
Misbourne from Great Missenden through the Chalfonts and on to Denham where it joined the river Colne which then runs in to the Thames at Staines. As can
be seen in the image below channels were created to feed water from the Misbourne into the Watercress beds and then drained back into the river… via a pond created
in the rectory grounds 🙄1.
The Bredbery's had started growing watercress at West Hyde (the other side of Denham)
in the early 1800s and at Fulmer (the other side of Chalfont.)
The cress was packed off to London where there was a considerable market for it which
resulted in cress being widely grown across the south east of England.
Alas William died on 16th September 1839 having broken his neck after falling down the stairs. A doctor was called but could do nothing for him. As a newspaper report clarified "The deceased was in liquor at the time he fell down stairs."
A couple of years later we find the 65 year old widow Susannah, listed as Susan, in the 1841 census along with Charles, David and George; all living near to William's younger brother John (1778-1854) his wife Ann (Boddington 1781-1858) and their children Hannah, Mark, David and Richard; just off the Amersham road - plots 1103 & 1100 in the watercress map above.
By the 1851 census she is listed as a pauper but still living with Charles, a shoemaker and David a blacksmith. George, having married Mary Bowden on 6th September 1845, was living round the corner in Back Lane2 with their children Jonathon, Charles and William. On the 29th of October 1853 Susannah died of bronchitis which she had suffered with for several years. Mary, presumably George's wife, was with her at the time.
Susannah would have had a couple of years to get to know her grandson William who was bon on the 18th June 1850. The Aldermans lived next door but one to the Puddefoots in Back Lane. Before marrying James Puddefoot Phoebe Halsey had had two children Louisa in 1854 and James in 1857. William would have known Louisa since he was four years old. On June 29th 1873 William married Louisa Halsey. On the 27th October 1873 they had a daughter whom they called… Louisa3. They had another daughter, Alice4<>/sup>, in 1876. The girls would only have had a few years with their mother as she died, at the age of 24, of apoplexy on the 24th May 1878. Phoebe, her mother, was with her as she died.
At the 1881 census William and the girls were living in Back Lane next door to his father George, himself a widower Mary having died on the 29th November 1875 of bronchial consumption. Other near neighbours were the Lislies. Probably having moved from Seer Green and Penn to Chalfont they had several children born in Chalfont. Their daughter Sarah (born 1832) may well have had several illegitimate children — or chance children as they were sometimes known. One such was Louisa who was born on Christmas day 1866. The 31 year old William married the 16 year old Louisa on December 23rd 1882. They would have several children:
Fred (1885-1952)
George (1887-1957)
Elizabeth (1889 - 1918)
Edith Mary (1891 - 1912) - died in 1912 at the age of 21 from Phthisis pulmonalis, an old name for tuberculosis, the prevalence of which was about to rapidly decline:
Emily (1894)
John (1896), having survived a broken leg at age eight caused by falling out of a hedge on his way to school — according to a newspaper report Mr Baldwin was passing with his cart so took the boy home, John was to die of diphtheria six months later.
Annie and Mary (1899).
squatters1: As you wander around Chalfont you may come across plaques extolling the largesse of the 'great' and the 'good'. There is, of course, another side to such stories.
2: Back lane became Vicarage lane and is now Church lane.
3: As a teenager daughter Louisa was working as a servant in Chelsea where she would meet gas fitter William Bifield. They returned to Chalfont to marry in 1897. They lived in Fulham and had a son, William, in 1899 and a daughter Dorothy in 1909. At the start of 1913 they had a son, Henry, but on 2nd December 1913 William, the father, died from appendicitis. Louisa married Spencer Roberts in 1919. By the 1921 census Henry and Dorothy were living with them but teenage William had moved on. Louisa died in 1945 and Spencer in 1952. Young William married Ethel East in 1924 and was working in Harrow as a bus conductor in the 1930s. He died in 1964.
4: In 1891 15 year old Alice was working as a servant for the Blakes, a family of bakers, in Beaconsfield. She married Richard Banks, a chauffeur, in 1900 in Brentford. In 1911 they were living in Paddington. By 1921 they were living in the cottage at Park House in Sutton Coldfield where he was chauffeur for Frederick Allen the managing director of the Cyclops Tube works in Walsall. By 1939 they were living in Smethwick. They do not seem to have had any children.