Ellen Amanda Alley – an ordinary woman

Today I am returning to one of my favourite Swindon families, the Alley family. You’ll see the name feature frequently on this blog. My interest in this amazing family was initially piqued by Emma Louisa Hull, the eldest daughter of George Richman and Emma Alley. I discovered Emma Louisa had joined the Women’s Freedom League and served a prison sentence in the formidable Holloway Prison for protesting in the Votes for Women campaign.

Then there were her six sisters, all independent, career women who ran their own businesses, including Mabel who was awarded the BEM (British Empire Medal) for fifty years service to the community as Postmistress at the Wescott Place Sub Post Office.

And in September 2022 I was able to welcome to the cemetery three members of the extended family; Di and George from Australia and Kay from Canada.

Now I have been able to discover the burial place of Ellen Amanda Alley, the daughter and 5th surviving child of Frederick Alley and his wife Elizabeth. Ellen was born in 1876 and is recorded on the 1881 census living with her parents and six siblings at 65 Gooch Street. By 1891 fourteen year old Ellen was working as a baister at Compton & Son, a clothing factory which employed a large female workforce situated on Station Road. The family were then living at 108 Princes Street.

In 1897 Ellen married Charles [Herbert] Thomas, a boilersmith employed in the GWR Works, and the young couple began married life with Ellen’s parents in the crowded Alley home at 9 Gordon Road.

The 1911 census lists Ellen and Charles living at 94 Bruce Street, Rodbourne with their three daughters Ada, Elsie and Gladys.

It would appear that Ellen led a quiet life fulfilling a typically female role, unlike her seven, trailblazing female cousins. But did she? So often the lives of women go unrecorded. I would urge all the women out there to write down the story of their life. Collect and record the lives of your mothers, grandmothers, aunts, female cousins, friends and neighbours. Set up a Facebook page and let’s link everyone in – make one huge history page for the ‘ordinary’ women out there. What do you think? Shall I get us started?

Ellen Amanda Thomas died on January 2, 1924 at the Victoria Hospital. She was buried on January 5 in grave plot D615. Her last address was at 32 Morris Street, Rodbourne.

Photographs are published courtesy of Wendy Burrows – family historian extraordinaire!