Job Richardson – House and Estate Agent

Image of Rodbourne Road published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

It’s not very often I get the opportunity to visit a house owned by the same family for 100 years (unless they are an aristocratic family) but recently I did. One hundred years of children running up and down the narrow stairs, one hundred years of washing on the line. There was even a saucepan dating back to those days – how many meals had been dished out from that pan and eaten at the kitchen table where I looked at family photographs and letters?

At the end of the 1860s Even Swindon was still mostly farmland but with the Great Western Railway Works on the doorstep it was growing fast. Development began in the 1870s with the sale of Northaines Farm, Edwards Farm and part of Even Swindon Farm and an early speculator was Job Richardson.

Job Richardson was born in 1842 in Somerset, the son of coal miner Elijah Richardson and his wife Eleanor. By 1861 19-year-old Job was also working in the Somerset coal mines.

In 1866 Job married Henrietta Milsom in Radstock.  Sadly, Henrietta died the following year, during or soon after the birth of her daughter Henrietta Milsom Richardson. She is buried in the churchyard at Radstock, most probably with the baby who died. By 1871 Job had moved to Bath, lodging in St James Parade, where he worked as a mason.

In 1872 Job married Sarah Rebecca Tanner at the parish of Widcombe, Somerset and by 1877 they had arrived in Swindon where Job bought land in Even Swindon. In 1881 Job was living at 33 Henry Street (quickly renamed Hawkins Street to avoid confusion with a street in the town centre) and working as a House & Estate Agent.

1884 notice published courtesy of Rodbourne Community History Group.

Job and Rebecca later moved to 133 Clifton Street but continued to rent out their properties in Rodbourne. Job died in 1903 and is buried in grave plot D163 with his father-in-law Henry Tanner who died earlier that same year. Rebecca sold her stake in the Rodbourne properties in 1924 and was buried with her husband and her father on January 4, 1928.