My Dear Harry or The Letters of Mary Ann Fisher.

Edited by Freda Wright and Pamela Keegan.

With line drawings by Freda Wright.

• CROPREDY HISTORY - 4
• Copyright (c) Pamela Keegan 1992.
• First published August 1992.
• Reprinted November 1992.
• WWW August 1999.
• Originally produced and printed at Ty Gwyn,
• Pilton Rhossili,Swansea.

Freda Wright and Anne Pamela Keegan  have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be acknowledged as Authors of this work.

While they are happy for anyone to use this work for personal research, any commercial use or any use in future publications must first have written permission from the Authors.

FORWARD.

Mrs Freda Wright wrote to me from Sutton, 5urrey, on the 3rd of August 1987. Thus began the long correspondence that led to the printing of her Grandmother's Letters. Having retired from teaching, but still busy as an artist she had begun to gather together the family history. Grandmother Borton came from Cropredy. Some of the family treasures had passed down to Freda's family. These included furniture, china and John Borton's engraved glassware; but most important and interesting were the documents so carefully kept by Harry and Pollie.

One was an· Indenture of apprenticeship made in 1838, for William Borton, Freda's Great Grandpa, to begin his apprenticeship as a saddler and harness maker. Another was a will of 1837, made by the saddler's Grandfather, a blacksmith also called William. He left money to his grandsons to pay for their apprenticeships. William Senior was the blacksmith who rebuilt "The Green" in brick. The old stone house which stood nearer the road had been the home of his Father, another blacksmith called William Borton who died in 1825. This first William had bought land and a cottage (later the home of Louis Lambert's in High Street) from William Hemmings of the Rose and Crown.

With the indenture and will were some papers which included a bundle of letters written by Freda's Grandparents. These had been put away safely and passed down to Mary Ann's youngest daughters. First to Minnie who kept up the family history, telling the stories to the next generation, and then to Freda's mother Muriel.

Other items coming from Mary Ann's bottom drawer were nighties, drawers and a crinoline frame. All now lodged at the Sutton library.

Mary Ana's Father, William the saddler, was the eldest of four [see page 23]. His Father John died in 1833 leaving their Mother to bring up the family. William having been apprenticed left home to start with John Amos of Hemel Hempstead. Once qualified as a saddler he moved to Birmingham. Thomas the youngest son became a coachbuilder and left for Warwick. One sister Susannah married Henry Purser who ran a pub in Thomas Street; Birmingham.

While in Birmingham William married Ann Johnson, whose father William was also an Innkeeper. They married on the 29th. of December 1851. At that time they were living in Ellis Street. Only one child survives, Mary Ann, who was born at 24 Ellis Street on the l2th of January 1853. They then disappear from the area.

By searching records at St Catherine's House; Freda was able to locate William and Ann at 164 Lever Street, West Middlesex, for there tragically, four days before Mary Ann's thirteenth birthday, her mother Ann died from typhus, aged only 37. Worse was to follow. Just four months later William, hawing been run over by a van in Shoreditch, died on the l5th of May 1866 at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Mary Ann moved to Aunt Betsy's and then on to the Pursers. Eventually having lost the two aunts she moved to Cropredy to live with Grandma Borton.

Here the young Mary Ann helped with  the Inland Revenue officers, one of whom always lodged with the Bortons. Mr Hosey, a former lodger, left his box behind [p. 109]. The most important one was Henry Fisher and unknown to anyone at Cropredy, Mary Ann and Henry were secretly married by licence at St Phillip's church ia Birmingham. 'They have as their address the Purser's Inn: Henry was 27 and Mary Ann 23. When Grandma Borton died in 1877 she was buried m the Borton plot, which is. situated in the north west section of Cropredy churchyard. The family graves are all near to James Watts Borton, who was drowned while skating on Clattercote pool: after Mary Ann left Cropredy the Fisher's live in Heath Town. Here their second child Amy Marian. (1877) was born to be followed by William Frederick ( 1879) and Dora ( 1880). Dora died. 'Ihen a move to Burton-on-Trent where Alice Laura (1883); Jessie Victoria (1886) and Alec Percy  (1886) arrive. Christened at Stapenhill were Minnie Gertrude (1890) and Gilbert Amos (1891). He died The family baptised at Winshill the two youngest Emily Muriel (1893) and Gerald Aubrey Leonard (1895).

Freda wrote asking for details about the cottages she had found mentioned in the wills. Mary Ann had managed to retrieve the property from the treasury by producing her collection of wills and documents, which may be the reason for the survival of the papers. They came into her possession when the Fisher's were living at The Laurels, 101 Scalpcliffe Road, Burton-on Trent As an owner of property Mary Ann wrote a will which was proved at Derby in 1919. In this she left her property to her husband Henry for life, and afterwards the estate, ·which included Hemming's former property, to Harry and his heirs [he produced none) otherwise the rents and profits to be shared between the surviving siblings. To Jessie, Minnie and Muriel she left the three cottages on the Green, with their rents shared between them: She suggested they keep the smallest cottage [by Smiths the shoemakers], and rent it free and furnish it with items of furniture and linen left to them. It was to be a rest home for them. If the three daughter's marry, then all five daughters to share the same. The estate totalled more than £700.

This idea of leaving the cottage as a holiday retreat for the women of the family, must surely express Mary Ann's love of Cropredy and the need for women to have a life of their own, from time to time. Sadly the idea was not taken up. Mary Ann Fisher nee Borton was buried at Wins hill parish churchyard, in Burton. The gravestone records that she died on the l6th of October 1917 aged 65 years. Henry missed her, but continued to support the family, with daughter Minnie's help. Muriel, who married Fred Martin was to give birth to Freda at the Laurels. When they finally left for other towns, holidays were spent at the Laurels. Henry died on the 11th of March 1936.

A.P. Keegan 1992

INTRODUCTION

MARY ANN BORTON wrote these letters as a young bride during 1876 and 1877, from Cropredy village in Oxfordshire. She was living at "The Green", the house built by her great grandfather William Borton, in about 1813. Mary Ann was orphaned in 1866, at thirteen, and lost all family of her own and young parent's generation around this date, but for one seemingly crusty uncle, Thomas Borton, of Warwick. Her grandmother, Mary Ann Borton senior, had been widowed in 1836, with four young children, William (father of Mary Ann junior), Thomas, Susanna and Betsy. Mary Ann senior gave her granddaughter a home until her own death in 1877, by which time Mary Ann junior with her first baby was ready to move into a home of her own in Wolverhampton with husband Harry Fisher.

The letters are mostly preoccupied with longings and concerns about her husband, a junior tax collector and excise man, who was moved around to various working "rides" by his supervisors. He was thus obliged to live with landladies in the Wolverhampton area He had earlier been billeted on Grandma Borton at 'The Green", with the predictable result that he fell in love with her young grand daughter, in such convenient proximity. But - cruel fate, he was not only moved on, by stony- faced supervisors, but replaced, by hapless Mr. Murray, who incurs understandable resentment from the loving couple.

The railway station at Cropredy is a busy focus for all the comings and goings of Harry Fisher, and all the friends and neighbours in the 1870's. Many of the present families in Cropredy have ancestors mentioned freely in the letters. Mary Ann becomes "Polly" which must have been a popular pet name of the time, as quite a few Pollies get a mention. Her regular sentiments are interspersed with local news, some of it mildly sensational in contrast with the humdrum tone of the account. I like the evocation of a busy summer day, when they are up and about early in the bath house, cleaning up for a grand visitation of friends and relations. A picture of the house and orchard long ago, seems to grow in my mind almost like a "memory".

Mary Ann Fisher made up for her lack of relatives, by going on to have nine surviving children of her own, of whom the youngest daughter became my mother. This grandma died before I was born, but, like my mother, I was born in her comfortable Victorian home in a midland town, where her widower, Grandpa Fisher, with his fine head of white hair and whiskers, lived on, still mourning his fondly remembered Polly.

Original Spellings have been preserved, do not blame the proof reading. Punctuation is amended where really necessary and paragraphs introduced.

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