By Christine Swan

Ethel Isabel was my great aunt. She was born in Southend on Sea in 1874 and was christened in the Church of St John the Baptist during the short while that her father, Charles Robert Apthorp, was training and working there as a printer. Ethel was about three years old when the family moved back to Stratford, where her mother Isabella was born. Charles Robert returned to working as a potman and waiter in a public house, and Isabella cared for the four children and kept house.

Ethel Isabel Apthorp aged seven in 1881 and living in Stratford

I set about trying to envisage where Charles Robert might have worked. Lett Road, where the family were living in 1881, is unrecognisable. It consists of modern apartment buildings that sprung up during the 2012 Olympic Games. It is just a very short walk to the High Street, where there would have been many public houses and inns. One, The Builders’ Arms, is too recent. On the other side of the road is the Westbridge Hotel, originally known as The Yorkshire Grey, an old coaching inn, dating from 1740. This feels very likely. Charles Robert would not have had to walk very far to it, and it would  have been a large enough establishment to have employed a number of bar and waiting staff.

Stratford town centre – By Pedleysd – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8000649

In the 1891 census, Ethel Isabel was recorded as being sixteen years old and working as a mother’s help. This would imply that she did not have sole charge of the children in her care, as would have been expected of a governess, who would usually be an older woman.

Ethel Isabel Apthorp and family living in Stratford in 1891

After the death of her mother in the same year, Ethel assumed the role of housekeeper within the Apthorp home. In 1901, when Ethel was twenty-six, the three youngest boys were still living at home but at least two were employed and paying into the family coffers. Ethel would have undertaken all of the washing, cooking and cleaning, which would have occupied her for most of the day. Charles Robert was a hard taskmaster and had a difficult relationship with his sons. I’m unsure of his relationship with Ethel, but I hope at least he was kind to her.

Ethel married George Mallows, a coach painter from Bermondsey, in 1905. Their son Horace, was born two years later. In 1911, the family were living in Harcourt Road, West Ham with Charles Robert, still giving his occupation as potman, but unemployed.

The Mallows/ Apthorp family in 1911 living in West Ham

George enlisted to the Labour Corps in 1915 and was mobilised in 1917. However, he was declared medically unit to serve due to debility, or general weakness and lack of physical fitness. He had declared a history of rheumatism, a heart murmur, neuralgia and was described as neurotic. He was discharged in 2019 and his pension appeal refused. He was however, awarded the silver badge, which recognises service and an honourable discharge.

George Mallows’ WWI service record

Charles Robert Apthorp died in 1915 which meant that Ethel would have been on her own caring for Horace, while George was completing his training. After his discharge from the army, George returned to being a coach painter for the London General Omnibus Company in Forest Gate. In 1921, the family lived in Aldworth Road, West Ham, which looks very much like any other street of terraced houses in this part of Greater London, built at the end of the nineteenth century. They were still living at this same address in 1939, when George and Ethel were in their mid-sixties. George still gave his occupation as a coach painter so was still working. Horace was now thirty-two and married to Maud. He had moved out to Maldon and was kept a smallholding on Manifold Wick Farm. Horace was an only child, so this must have been a wrench for his parents to have him living further into Essex.

After the outbreak of war, Manifold Wick farm was requisitioned by the War Agricultural Committee and the cottages were occupied by Land Army girls. It is not clear where Horace moved to but perhaps it was closer to the centre of Tolleshunt Knights, where his parents were now living.

All Saints’ Church, Tolleshunt Knights, Maldon – By Robert Edwards, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8168276

Ethel died in 1953 and her address was recorded as Park Lane, Tolleshunt Knights, an address closer to the village centre, which would have been more convenient for the now aged couple. I do wonder how they adapted to life in a small village after having lived their adult lives in Greater London. Even given that Essex, in what we would now class as London, was more rural at the time when the Mallows were a young couple.

My mother did not remember her aunt Ethel but, her eldest sister was named after her. If she was a true Apthorp girl, Ethel would have been, quite short and slim, feisty and hard working. She was a caring lady, who assumed the role of mother to her younger brothers and cared for her cantankerous father in his dotage. Even when she married, she took her father into her marital home and continued to look after him for a further ten years before his death. Just like my maternal grandmother and mother, caring was in Ethel’s nature. I think this is a perfect epithet for her.