Alice her Life

From Birth in Chester and Orphan in Grantham

My grandmother was born on the 22nd June in the year of
1871 in Church Street, Chester, Cheshire and fairly near to
the Cathedral. Her parents - William, who was a stonemason,
had found consistent work for a span of some years - working
as a mason on the Cathedral - And Elizabeth, her mother, had
uprooted themselves from their home town of Grantham in
Lincolnshire so perhaps lack of work in the area had caused
them to make this far off removal.

Alice was their third child, their eldest child, Edward had been
born in Grantham in 1867, as was his sister Sarah Ann who
arrived in 1869. The family moved to Chester sometime
between the births of the two girls, and stayed there at least
until 1875 as Edward died while they were still living there.
He was only 7 years of age and succumbed to Scarlet Fever,
after being ill for just 36 hours. At this time the family were
living in King Street in Chester. By 1880 they are found to be
living back in Grantham as William died of T.B there, and in
1881 Elizabeth and the two girls are to be found living with
their mothers parents. Elizabeth then married again quickly
and briefly before she also died of T.B. It is not clear where
the girls were when their mother died but it does not seem
that their grandparents were able to keep or take them back
into their care as at some point after their mothers death
Sarah was sent into service and Alice was taken in to live
with her Uncle Frederick, her fathers brother and his wife,
known as Aunt Izzie by Alice. They had a young growing
family so she was able to earn her keep by helping to look
after them and became a close member of the family.

When Alice was old enough, she also, was sent into service, I
have been told she was a lady's maid, and on other occasions
that she was housekeeper so not sure exactly what role she
had, perhaps both at differing times. Her first placement was
thought to be somewhere in Nottinghamshire. Alice, in learning
her duties to her mistress, carried some of these over into her
life after marriage and just as the lady of the house would
retire to her room after luncheon - to freshen herself and
change into an afternoon gown, so did Alice right to the end of
her life.

By the early 1890's Alice had moved southward and was
working for a family living in Finchley. She had a romance and
an engagement to a Butcher or was it a Baker, who made
deliveries to the house - but this came to an end when he
seemed to think being engaged was as good as being married.
Then my grandfather Richard came upon the scene - he, while
delivering the daily milk, got to know Alice and his behaviour
obviously met with her approval as they married on a May day
in 1893 at Christ Church on Turnham Green in Chiswick - the
parish church of the Polding family.

Alice and Richard then settled in Finchley, where they ran a
public house together and the babies started to arrive - Violet,
Ernest and Gladys arrived in quick succesion between August
1894 and December 1896. This took a great toll of Alice and
they were finding it a huge struggle to cope with all the work,
therefore, when in 1897 Richards father appealed to them to
move back to Chiswick to help with his Dairy business they
decided to do so. This was, however, something that Alice at
least, came to greatly regret - as now not only was life hard
but they were a lot poorer than they had been.

ACTON LANE LIFE

On their return they found Richard's father greatly in need of
help in the business - he had lost a part of his leg, having been
kicked by a cow and the wound had turned gangrenous, he now
hopped around on a wooden peg leg and with the aid of a
kitchen stool in the house. His three elder sons had given up
helping their father with the Dairy business and gone their own

ways, leaving him to cope with just his youngest son Harry to
help - but he had more enthusiasm for playing cricket and
gambling than in delivering milk.

In the August of the year they returned to Chiswick the new
baby became ill with intestinal ulcers, Gladys was just 8
months and died on the birthday of her brother Ernest. At this
time they were living at 3 Colville Road in Acton but at some
point between 1897 and 1903 they moved into 13 Acton Lane
perhaps after the death of Alice's mother-in-law Caroline, in
June 1900. Somehow Alice managed to have a break from
having her babies as no more appeared until 1901 and it is
thought that perhaps at least one pregnancy had ended in a
miscarriage in this time. It is known that a miscarriage did
happen later in her marriage due, according to Alice, to being
frightened at witnessing a vicious fight that broke out in the
street when she was out shopping.

MORE BABIES

On the 23rd October 1901 Dorothy arrived 39 years before my
own birthday on that date. Dorothy was to stay in the family
home for most of her life and became a favourite auntie to her
siblings children. Two years later in 1903 along came Reginald,
and he was born in 13 Acton Lane, unlike the earlier children.
Phyllis in 1908 was a difficult, even dangerous birth as Alice was
advised not to have any more children. She managed not to do
so for a further four years but then along came my mother Iris,
in the February of 1912 born in the Acton Lane house and
happily quite safely, and with her eldest sister on guard outside
the door.

TRAGIC EVENTS

Living in this very crowded house now was Richard senior, his
unmarried daughter Carrie, unmarried son Harry, Richard
junior, Alice and their six children and life continued in this way
until 1914 when Harry, who had become very depressed over
problems with money, was driven to kill himself. He appealed
to Alice for help as she had loaned him sums previously but
this time she could not do so and she caught him just in time to
stop him throwing himself from a bedroom window, it is
believed she also stopped him in a further attempt on another
occasion - but he finally did end his life with a cut-throat razor
in the back garden - being found by his 10year old niece when
she returned from school. My mother was only 2 years at the
time and was not to find out about this until she was around
10 years - she was informed about it by a friend she had
brought home from school - and much to her disgust that she
was being told such lies. Most of lifes events were kept quiet
from children, babies suddenly appeared, and people
disappeared without explainations. In spite of having three
older sisters, not even they informed my mother about the
rites of passage that young girls are to face in life, and
certainly as far as Alice was concerned there were certain
things that were never mentioned.

1914 continued to be a bad year. the first world war started
and with Alice's son Ernest reaching just 16 years in the
August he was caught up in the drama and he joined up to
fight for his country and was duly sent off to the trenches. A
loss of another pair of hands with the business and the worry
of whether he would return or not. However, as small and as
young as he was he somehow survived and was to return to
help his father when the war was over, and he was to
eventually inherit the Dairy.

A story that was handed down through the family was that
Elizabeth Hard, a sister in law of Alice, and being pregnant for a
fourth time after a long gap had, in desperation and just 7
months after her brothers suicide, it was said that she arrived
at Acton Lane much distressed and attempted to end her
pregnancy with a knitting needle. No further details in this
story were given other than that Elizabeth had inadvertently
ended her own life. Not being able to find a death certificate I
decided to take this as gospel as it seemed a story that would
not be invented. However, recently feeling a need to verify
this returned me to the indexes and this time found the death
certificate indexed under the name of Heard. And this slip of
paper revealed a different story of poor Elizabeth and her
demise - it certified that she died of heart failure after delivery
of a still born daughter in the eighth month of her pregnancy.
And this had not taken place at Acton Lane. So there was a
baby and Elizabeth did die but the certificate puts a different
slant on the circumstances.

Family difficulties were not over as just ten months later in
February 1916 Richard senior died and yet again it was his
grand-daughter Dorothy who was to discover a member of her
family had died. She found him sitting in a chair in the scullery
and was very affected by the loss of her grandad as they had
had an affectionate relationship and I can hear her now saying
"dear old grandad".

After the death of the second of Richards parents Alice soon
realised that she needed to take over the financial side of the
business - Richard was no business man and financially things
had got into a dire situation, Alice saved the business from
sinking without trace by balancing the books. There was a
strong bond between them and as far as Richard was
concerned his answer to any question was 'if your mother says
yes it is alright with me '. He was full of admiration for her and
would frequently say she was a wonderful woman - even Aunt
Izzie who had looked after her when orphaned, received his
praise for having 'saved my Alice for me '. My mother has said
that they would often sit quietly at the kitchen table, just the
two of them, while the rest of the house rumbled about them,
their hands would just be touching as they rested on the table,
and she said she always felt she was intruding on private
moments that were precious to them.