Charles Allcock (1773-1859) & Sarah Jesson (1771-1838)
Charles Allcock was the son of Egerton Allcock and Ann Annerley, whose families were farmers in Staffordshire. His parents’ home was the Park at Abbots Bromley, where he was baptised on 3 December 1773, and prior to that at Hanbury, Staffordshire.
Charles Allcock of Bromley Park, gent. appeared in the 1801 Staffordshire Game Certificate list. In 1802, when the codicil to his father’s will was written, he was in occupation of a farm in Newton Regis (also known as Newton-in-the-Thistle), which is some 20 miles away. The land tax register listed land owned by his uncle, Hugh Annerley, with Charles as occupier. His uncle, Hugh Annerley, continued to own land at Newton where he was buried in 1827.
Sarah Jesson was a member of a prominent family of iron manufacturers in West Bromwich, where her parents, Joseph Jesson and Ann Farmer, lived at Oakwood house. She was baptised at West Bromwich on 25 January 1771.
Charles Allcock and Sarah Jesson were married in 1804, at which point he was described as a farmer. Charles and Sarah’s three sons and eldest daughter were baptised at Newton Regis: Egerton Allcock, baptised 11 May 1807; Ann Jesson, baptised 18 May 1808; Charles, baptised 21 August 1809; Joseph Jesson, baptised 1 August 1811; Annerley, baptised 19 February 1813.
By 1816 the family was living at Solihull hall (British History Online). Their youngest child and daughter, Catherine Mary Allcock, was baptised at Solihull in 1817.
Charles’s nephew (the son of his sister Ann and her husband John Jennings, who was in the iron trade, of Birmingham) was Egerton Allcock Jennings who became a surgeon and whose early death prompted a detailed obituary. From this we know he was schooled under the Rev. John Griffin of Solihull, and so possibly Charles and Sarah’s children received a similar education.
Some notable events during the time the family lived at Solihull hall were:
- 1820: the death of Charles’s brother, Hugh Thomas Annerley Allcock, who was living with him after being declared bankrupt. “On Monday night at his brother’s at Solihull, aged 38, Hugh Thos Annerley Allcock, late of Adbaston Farm, in this county.” (Staffordshire Advertiser 2 September 1820)
- 1831: the marriage of their eldest son, Egerton, to Sophia Moore, third daughter of the late Mr Moore of Knowle Hall (Aris’s Birmingham Gazette January 1831). (Egerton was a maltster at West Bromwich.)
- 1831: The death of their eldest daughter, Ann. “On the 25th inst. Aged 23, Ann Jesson, eldest daughter of Mr Charles Allcock of Solihull Hall.” (Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, Monday 29 August 1831)
Details of the farm were listed for its sale in 1837: “Superior Livestock, near Solihull in the County of Warwick to be sold by auction…on Friday the 13th of March, 1835, at Solihull-hall, the following very capital Fat and Store Stock, Farming Implements, and other property belonging to Mr Charles Allcock, who is leaving his farm at Solihull…three capital draught horses, two draught colts rising two years old, six cows forward in calf, two six-inch wheel waggons, one narrow wheel ditto…wheel carts, ploughs, harrows, wheat and turnip drills, a hand flour mill, with French stones, three nine and one fourteen stone rick staddles, and part of the genteel household furniture, dairy and brewing utensils” (Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, Monday 23 February 1835).
Charles and Sarah moved to Vauxhall Grove, in Aston, Birmingham. Charles was listed in 1838 electoral roll for this address and in the 1841 census Charles, Sarah, and their children Charles and Catherine were living there. At that time Aston, and the parish of Duddeston, was still relatively close to the countryside, albeit bounded to the south-east by the canal and new railway (with the Grand Union Railway’s Vauxhall Station opening in 1837). The new church at Duddeston (built 1840) was referred to as St Matthew’s in the wilderness because the area was still relatively rural.
Nearby in Ashted Row, Aston, lived Sarah’s sisters, Mary and Ann Jesson who were later joined by their other sister, Rebecca Harding (the widow of the Rev. John Harding) and her daughter. They had inherited sufficient funds from their parents to own freehold property and have annuities. In addition, the electoral roll of 1837 for West Bromwich listed Charles Allcock of Birmingham as the freehold owner of houses and land occupied by Thomas Jesson, tenant.
Vauxhall Grove is the last named street to the east on the south of Vauxhall Lane (now road) – and these roads still exist, as does the railway and parts of the canal. Ashted Row runs across the top.
Painted from the north, looking south, the buildings on the right of the painting are presumably the backs of houses on Vauxhall Grove. (The gardens closed in 1850 and the area rapidly became urbanised.)
Sarah died on Friday 18 June 1841 at Vauxhall Grove; Mary Jesson was present at the death. She was buried at Key Hill cemetery where the record notes “Sarah Allcock (principal connexion: Charles Allcock), Vauxhall Grove, aged 70, died of ‘Decline of life’” (Key Hill records). Her grave plot (E/183) was where her sister Ann Jesson had been buried in 1839 and where her sister Mary Jesson would be buried in 1847. Their eldest sister, Catherine Molesworth, had also lived in Ashted Row and her son Joseph continued to do so after her death in 1833; she and her husband were buried at St James’s Church, Aston (now demolished).
Also in 1841, their youngest son qualified as a surgeon: “Mr Annerley Allcock of this town has been admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons” (Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, Monday 30 August 1841).
The family were still living in Aston when Charles, their son, married on 27 December 1843: “Charles Allcock (office clerk, Vauxhall Grove, son of Charles Allcock, Gentleman) to Louisa Knott Ash (daughter of Edward Ash, Merchant)” (St Thomas’s Birmingham).
By the 1850s the family had moved to Handsworth, west of Birmingham. Aston had become increasingly built up and residential areas to the west were preferable as the prevailing winds kept most pollution away.
Charles Allcock of Smethwick was listed as a rivet maker in the 1850 Birmingham directory, though it is not clear what role each Charles – father and son – played in running this business. However, at the time of the 1851 census Charles (senior) was staying with his son Charles, and his occupation was given as retired iron master and his son’s (Charles junior) as iron manufacturer/master employing 46 men, 50 boys, 4 women. This implies that Charles (senior) had been involved to some extent in the iron business as owner or investor. (Also in the 1851 census, his son, Annerley Allcock MRCS had his own house at Oldbury Road, Harborne, and living with him were his brother, Joseph Jesson Allcock, annuitant, and sister, Catherine M, fund holder.)
The Allcock connection with the rivet business dates to the 1840s when the principal ironworks in Smethwick were Messrs Jones, Aspinal & Co. In 1845 this company’s property was advertised for sale with the foundry, smith and shop described as adjoining the Patent Rivet Works, which could be included in the sale. The Patent Rivet Company at Smethwick had been part of their business until 1842. The advertisement said those interested should “apply on the premises to Mr Charles Allcock”. In 1849 there was a Smethwick rivet company of Wood and Allcock listed in the Birmingham directory. The company had premises at Rolfe Street and made nuts, bolts, screws, rivets, and pins for railway use. In 1873 the partnership between Thomas Wood & Charles Allcock as the Patent Rivet Company was dissolved and taken on by Egerton Allcock (son of Egerton Allcock, the eldest son of Charles and Sarah) and Walter Harley.
Charles (senior) continued to live in Smethwick, his address was Broomfield house at the time of the marriage of his daughter, Catherine Mary, in 1854 to Joseph C S Jennings.
The firm and family seem to have been reasonably prominent in Smethwick affairs. Examples included at a meeting in 1850 to disapprove of allowing Catholic emancipation, motions were seconded by Mr C Allcock, ironmaster, and (either his brother or son) Mr A Allcock, surgeon; also, efforts to improve sanitation in Smethwick were sponsored by Charles Allcock as were regular donations to hospitals and other public bodies.
Charles died on 30 March 1859. The executors of his will were Richard Bagnall of Cliff Hall near Fazeley, Thomas Wood of Wolverhampton and Charles Allcock (junior). Richard Bagnall was from a family of iron and coal masters from West Bromwich; his brother, John Bagnall Jnr, married Anne Jesson (1796-1827) who was the daughter of Thomas Jesson, Charles Allcock’s brother-in-law. She is listed on the Bagnall family memorial in the church at West Bromwich.
Charles was buried at Warstone Lane cemetery on 5 April 1859. His grave plot (636/N) was where his younger sons Joseph Jesson and Annerley were later buried following their deaths in March 1880 and November 1882. His remaining son, Charles, moved to Clapham Park, London; he was buried at West Norwood cemetery in 1889.
The Birmingham General Cemetery Company was dissolved in 1952 and the cemeteries were compulsory purchased by the Birmingham City Council. The Warstone Lane chapel was demolished in the 1950s following bomb damage in the Second World War and Key Hill chapel was demolished in 1966. (Friends of Key Hill and Warstone Lane cemeteries)