The re-imagined story …
Next week I shall be in Wiltshire so I will make a visit to Swindon. I will be working at Charlton Park, the home of the Earl and Countess of Suffolk. Lady Suffolk wants a chaise longue reupholstered and some new curtains for the nursery before the baby is born in the summer. On March 2 I will attend the funeral of Mrs Matthews.
How fortunate am I to have such an interesting occupation? Last week I was working on the stage curtains at the London Palladium. Now I am packing my suitcase and setting off for Charlton Park to work for a peer of the realm. And it’s all thanks to Mrs Matthews.
I was born in Stratton St Margaret on December 28, 1884, the youngest of six children. My mother died before I was a year old and my father couldn’t continue working at Cat’s Brain Farm and look after us, so we all ended up in the Swindon and Highworth Union Workhouse. That set the pattern for my childhood. A few months at home with my father and then back in the Workhouse when things got too much for him. As a child it didn’t seem too bad to me. I suppose I didn’t know any different.
I was ten-year-old when sweeping changes took place in local government. A change in the law allowed women to sit on the Poor Law Board of Guardians and the effect was felt immediately by the inmates, especially the women and children.
Mrs Williams, one of four women to join the Board of Guardians, arranged for the acquisition of a new mangle for the laundry, which considerably eased the workload of the woman who worked there. And the older girls like my sisters Maud and Enid received new nightclothes, an item of clothing that had never been reviewed once they grew out of their childhood garments.
But it was Mrs Matthews who took me under her wing. Not just me, but all the children in the workhouse who were fast approaching school leaving age. She suggested I might be part of a new boarding out scheme where children were fostered by families in Swindon and the local villages. It sounded a nice idea but I didn’t want to leave the life I had grown used to.
Well she didn’t give up on me, even though I was proving to be an awkward child. But then she was used to awkward children, she had more than ten of her own.
When I look back I don’t know how she managed to give so much of her time to the Workhouse children, and to me in particular. Mrs Matthews supervised two family businesses, a tailors and a newsagents and coped with a difficult husband who had twice declared himself bankrupt. It was rumoured he was a drunkard but no one said as much within her hearing. He died in 1905 found drowned in a stream at Westlecott after wandering away from the family home when no one was supervising him. I only learned of this much later. It must have been heart-breaking for her.
Mrs Matthews kept a keen eye on my schoolwork and when it was noted that I was proving to be an accomplished seamstress she suggested I might like to earn my living by my needlework. I couldn’t have anticipated what she might have in mind.
On my fourteenth birthday she collected me from the Workhouse. Mr. Arkell, the carter, drove us to the train station in Old Town and at Swindon Junction we boarded the train to Paddington, an adventure for a child who had seldom left the confines of the Workhouse.
Mrs Matthews had arranged for me to have an interview at the prestigious firm of Burnetts, an upholstering business in Kingly Street, off Oxford Street. I presented some examples of my work and sat a short test and Mr Edwards, the manager, offered me an apprenticeship on the spot.
How fortunate am I to have such an interesting occupation? Last week I was working on the stage curtains at the London Palladium. Now I am packing my suitcase and setting off for the country estate of the Countess of Suffolk.
I loved Mrs Matthews. Not in a sentimental way. She never tried to be my mother. To be honest she could be quite fierce, not the affectionate type at all. She ruled and dominated her own family, including her wayward sons and refused to be intimidated by the powerful men on the Board of Guardians, and when it came to the neglected and vulnerable children in the workhouse, she was fearless. I have a lot to thank her for, and tomorrow I will pay my respects at her funeral.
The facts …
When Maria Matthews died in 1940 the local press reported that she was the first woman to serve on the Poor Law Board of Guardian but in reality, she was one of four trailblazing women so to do.
The Local Government Act of 1894 brought in reforms that allowed women to serve on parish and district councils. These reforms extended to the election of the Poor Law Board of Guardians and for the first time women were eligible to be guardians.
Elections took place in December 1894 and when the Poor Law Guardians met at the Stratton St. Margaret Workhouse on 2 January 1895 the names of four women were among their numbers.
Maria was the wife of master tailor Jesse Matthews. Together the couple ran two businesses, a tailor’s shop in Regent Street and a newsagent’s business in Fleet Street. Jesse had both a drink and gambling addiction and in 1886 was declared bankrupt. Maria headed their large family and business concerns alone after Jesse’s death in 1905.
The funeral took place on March 2, 1940 of Mrs Maria Matthews who died at her home in Kent Road aged 97 years old. The Rev Joseph Coombes conducted the service at Mrs Matthews’ former home and afterwards at Radnor Street Cemetery. Sadly, she lies buried in an unmarked grave.
I have recently been contacted by Shelley Hughes, a descendant of Maria’s, who supplied some of the above information.
Shelley writes: “I found Maria living with her Mapson (Mother’s brother) aunt and uncle in Wootton Bassett when she was just eight years old in 1841. I believe she was sent to live with them after her father died in 1838. Maria’s older brother (age 10), younger sister (age 6) and their grandmother continued to live with her mother in Cirencester. I just discovered on the 1841 census that Jesse Matthews and his family lived just a few houses away from Maria and her aunt and uncle. The age difference was considerable at the time with Maria age 8 and Jesse age 17, but they must have known each other.”
And in addition to this extra information, Shelley has sent me another fantastic photograph of Maria, Jesse and their family taken in around 1893, just a year before her election onto the Poor Law Board of Guardians.
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Radnor Street Cemetery 
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