Two Welsh brothers arrived in Swindon during the 1880s and left their mark on the town.
Thomas and John George were born in the village of Boverton, Llantwit Major, Glamorganshire. Thomas was born in 1853 the elder son of Thomas and Margaret George; his younger brother John was born in 1866. Their father worked throughout his life as an agricultural labourer and in 1881 John was also working as a farm labourer. Thomas became a stonemason, a trade which would help the brothers establish themselves in Swindon’s late Victorian building boom.
Thomas arrived in Swindon in the 1880s where he quickly got to work, building a property in Rodbourne Road in 1887. By 1891 Thomas was living at 26 Dean Street with his wife Emma and their two young children Minnie 2, and 1 year old Thomas when his brother John joined him. This is the year in which Thomas and John would begin work on a street that would bear the brothers’ name – George Street.
The two brothers worked together throughout the 1890s building properties in Butterworth Street, Dean Street, Dixon and Deacon Streets. During the final year of the century they were engaged in projects in Wells Street, Gladstone Street, Ponting Street, Manchester Road and Groundwell Road.
At the time of the 1901 census the brothers were living at 69 and 71 Eastcott Hill. John was also married by then and had three sons Alfred 8, Bernard 7 and Albert 4 all born in Swindon. But ten years later and everything had changed. Then living at 169 Victoria Road John, aged 44 describes himself as a retired builder. Thomas would carry on the business alone building houses in Wells Street, Lincoln Street and Portsmouth Street in 1914/5.
By 1918 John and his family had moved to London. At the time of the compilation of the 1939 list John and Emma were living in Addison Gardens, Kensington with their son Alfred George, a wholesale wine merchant’s clerk.
Thomas remained in Swindon and a home at 1 Okus Road where he died in August 1915, aged 62. He is buried in plot E7669, a grave he shares with his wife Emma who died four years later.
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