Tag: pubs

James Sweeper – Ostler

James Sweeper was born in Marlborough in about 1824 the son of William and Harriett Sweeper. On December 8, 1845 he married Jane Gilbert at the church of St. Peter, Marlborough.

By 1851 James and Jane with their two young children Eliza 2 and 2 months old George, lived above the stables at the Queens Hotel, Swindon. He was 28 years old and employed as a post boy – a job description open to interpretation. Sometimes described as a mail carrier, a post boy was also a person who rode one of the horses pulling a carriage. The two roles could be, and frequently were, combined.

In 1861 James and Jane and their 5 children lived at the Queens Hotel Tap, Railway Station, Swindon. In 1871 James, now widowed, lived at the Queens Hotel Stable with daughter Eliza and sons George, Henry and William. However, sorting out the various town centre Queens Hotels is confusing.

The Queen’s Tap pictured on Trip day 1934 published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Swindon Junction Station (now called Swindon Station) was built in 1841-42 by J.D. & C. Rigby. A far more impressive building in those days, it originally consisted of 2 separate 3 storey buildings straddling either side of the railway line and linked by a footbridge. These buildings contained the infamous refreshment rooms and the Queen’s Royal Hotel. Was this where James worked as a post boy and later an ostler (a man employed to look after the horses of people staying at an inn)?

The second candidate is an inn built in 1841 that once stood at the bottom of Corporation Street close to the Whitehouse Bridge. It later became known as The White House and was demolished in 2002, but in James’s day it was called the Queen’s Arms Hotel.

Finally, we have the only one left standing, the Queen’s Tap, opposite the station on the corner of Wellington Street and Station Road.

So where did James live and work between 1850-1870. My money is on the Queens Arms Hotel but then again perhaps he worked at all three hotels at various times.

Jane Sweeper died in April, 1868 aged 44 years and was buried in St. Mark’s churchyard. James married for a second time in 1875 when he was working as a horse dealer in East London. James married Lucy W. Hunt, a widow, at St Leonard’s Church, Bromley and by 1881 had returned to Swindon where they lived at 22 Holbrook Street with James’s son Harry.

It has been much easier to establish James’s last resting place here in Radnor Street Cemetery! He died in 1887 aged 65 and was buried on December 7, in grave plot E8582 with Lucy who had died earlier that same year.

George Bishop – publican turned farmer

Sometimes a headstone can tell you a surprising amount of family history, although this one is becoming rather difficult to read.

Here is the story of a publican turned farmer and his two little grandchildren who were born and died during the 10 year gap between the 1881 and 1891 censuses.

George Bishop was baptised at the parish church in Wroughton on December 9, 1821, the son of Elizabeth Bishop, a servant, who did not provide a father’s name for the entry in the parish records. However, when George married Sarah Turner in 1846 he submitted his father’s details as George Gardener, a gardener.

Image of Bridge Street taken in c1925 published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

At the time of the 1851 census George was recorded as a beerhouse keeper living on Eastcott Hill. A beerhouse was a premises licensed to sell only beer (no spirits). Beer could be brewed on the premises or purchased from a brewer. By 1861 George was landlord at a pub in Bridge Street, presently unidentified. (Could it have been the Sun Inn whose first recorded landlord was Robert Bishop – see Last Orders by John Stooke?) 

George and his family were still at No 55 Bridge Street in 1871. It must have been a large establishment as the census records for that year show the names of six boarders living there on census night.

George Bishop had been a publican for more than thirty years when at the end of the 1870s he gave it all up to become a farmer. At the time of the 1881 census George was farming 10 acres at Nore Marsh Farm in Wootton Bassett where he died on January 27, 1884. The cause of death was recorded as ‘syncope owing to diseased heart.’

His personal estate was valued at £126 14s 2d, administration of which was left to his only son George Thomas (his wife Sarah died in 1872 and is buried in St. Mark’s churchyard.)

Just months after George’s death the family were to gather again for the funerals of two little children. Three year old Frank Bishop was buried with his grandfather on November 21, 1884 and just eight days later one year old Agnes joined them. Frank and Agnes were the children of George Thomas Bishop and his wife Alice.

Almost 80 years after the sad events of 1884, a fourth and final burial took place in the Bishop family grave plot. On November 20, 1963 William Henry Bishop was buried alongside his grandfather and the remains of his little brother and sister, Frank and Agnes. He was 85 years old.