The Pratt Family in Mortlake


St Mary, Kentisbeare, 2009

In 1787 Thomas Pratt and his wife Mary (nee Walcott) were living in Kentisbeare, Devon. They already had four children when Mary found out that she was pregnant again. Their last child, Dorothy, born three years earlier, had been baptised at the expense of the parish and so they had obviously come upon bad times and the financial burden of another child may not have been welcome news. The baby was born in early 1788 and named after his father; the family finances had not improved so when he was baptised in February 1788 the parish paid once again.[1]

When Thomas grew up it may have been this poverty that drove him to seek his fortune elsewhere. After leaving Devon, he moved about looking for work as a shoemaker and by 1815 he was in London. On Wednesday, 9 October 1815, in St Andrew by the Wardrobe Church in London, he married Elizabeth Brice, the eldest daughter of Peter Brice a shoemaker from Mamhead, Devon and his wife Francis Cotton. Elizabeth was only nineteen years old - eight years younger than Thomas.[2] They went to live in New Brentford in Middlesex near, or possibly with, Elizabeth's parents. Peter Brice died the following year. On 4 April 1817 Elizabeth gave birth to their first son, Thomas Brice Pratt, in New Brentford. Elizabeth's family were non-conformists and so instead of having him baptised at the parish church, baby Thomas Brice was entered, on 8 Jul 1817, into the registers of one of the Baptist, Independent, or Wesleyan Methodist churches that were in the town.[3] Another son, William, was born on 21 Nov 1818 and he too was registered in the non-conformist church register.[4] By the time their first daughter, Elizabeth, was born on 1 May 1821 Thomas' mother-in-law was living in Camberwell possibly with her sister Jane and her husband. About the same time Thomas and Elizabeth may have started going to the local Church of England church because on 1 Aug 1821 all three children were baptised in the parish church of St Lawrence in New Brentford.[5] Sometime in the next four years the family moved to Dartford in Kent where their children Edward and Mary Ann were born and later to Newington in Surrey where their youngest son, Alfred was born.[6]

Some time after Alfred’s birth in 1835 Thomas with Elizabeth and the three youngest children, Edward, Mary Ann and Alfred moved their shoemaking business to Mortlake in Surrey, a village on the River Thames.[7]

At that time the village of Mortlake was mostly clustered around the parish church of St Mary the Virgin with market gardens surrounding it. In 1831 there were a total of 2698 people in the combined area of Mortlake with East Sheen of whom 179 men over the age of 21 were in the retail trade. William IV was on the throne and the long Victorian era was about to begin. But like so many other places at this time it had some unpleasant aspects, there were several open sewers and drains including the Black Ditch, a really disgusting smelly sewer running down to the river and the houses were old and over crowded. When Thomas and his family arrived the people were recovering from an outbreak of cholera which had been followed swiftly by an outbreak of smallpox. Gas lighting in the street was still more than 10 years away so care was needed when venturing out at night!


1907 Map showing the position of the shop (highlighted)[9]

Thomas rented a small three storey shop on the High Street between James Page’s grocer’s shop and John Lydford’s, bakery and shop.[8] John Lyford was also the receiving officer for the postal service so if Thomas was expecting a letter he could check for its arrrival after each of the five daily deliveries by just popping-in next door! Thomas' shop was near the corner with Sheen Lane on the opposite side to the Kings Arms, a public house run by Samuel and Ann Taylor. It was a brick building with a High Street frontage containing a small window and one door. We don’t know what sort of shoes Thomas was making but the area was known for the many market gardens and so Thomas may have been making boots for the gardeners or perhaps he was making expensive shoes for the wealthier folk in neighbouring East Sheen.


	Thomas' shop in Mortlake High Street

Thomas and his family were not the only ones to move to Mortlake around this time - in fact the town had been growing so rapidly that the limited free seating in the parish church of St Mary the Virgin had become a problem. In 1838 an enlargement to the church was agreed and building work by Thomas Long of Richmond began in 1840. The old high box pews were retained and 400 new free seats were crammed in increasing the seating to nearly 1300.[10] The vicar described the new church as ‘inconvenient', ‘unsightly’, ‘dark’ and ‘unventilated’ but others were still more critical describing it as ‘devoid of any redeeming feature’ and ‘exceedingly gloomy’.

Life in the 1830s was hard and leisure time limited but Thomas and his family probably joined the crowds at the riverbank on 15 March 1845 to watch Cambridge win the first Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race between Putney and Mortlake. Although it was not an annual event until 1856, Thomas and Elizabeth would almost certainly have watched several more races over the years.


The railway through Mortlake, 2009

Thomas may also have given up some time to sit in on the meetings about the proposed railway line through Mortlake. There was much local opposition to the threat of a railway being built through Mortlake because the inhabitants felt that it would be of no benefit to them and indeed - there would be obstructions of the highways and footpaths, an invasion of private property, irreparable damage to houses, no benefit to business as there was no manufacturing industry or commerce along the whole route and it would ‘tend to the increase of the desecration of the Lord’s day’.[11] Nevertheless within ten years the railway was built and although there was probably no immediate benefit for Thomas, having the railway station located close to his shop would eventually mean more trade. The first train, comprising sixteen carriages and pulled by the steam engine ‘Crescent’, ran through Mortlake in the early afternoon of the 27 July 1846.[12]

It was also very likely that Thomas and Elizabeth, or at least their children, visited the Great Exhibition of 1851 - a massive celebration of industrial technology and design held in the specially built Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London with 13000 exhibits from all over the world. Six million people visited the exhibition, of whom 4.5 million entered on the cheapest, one shilling, tickets. This was an exhibition that fired the enthusiasm of the working classes as well as the richer people.

In late September of 1851 Elizabeth became ill; she probably suffered a stroke, which caused paralysis in one half of her body and after eleven days, on eighth of October, she died at her High Street home with Thomas by her side. She was buried in the parish church graveyard on the same day that the Great Exhibition closed, 15 October 1851.[13] A few years after in 1854 a law was passed that, due to overcrowding, all London churches were to close their graveyards to new burials and new burial grounds were to be built. So when Thomas died in April 1855, at the age of 68, he could not be buried with Elizabeth and instead was buried in, what is now known as the ‘Old Mortlake Burial Ground’.[14] It had only been consecrated a few months before so Thomas was one of the first to be buried there. His shop was probably cold and damp through the winter months and this would not have helped when, in the January before his death, Thomas developed a cold and sore throat. As he became more ill the cold developed into bronchitis and Caroline Ruffley came to nurse him. Caroline, who lived in the parish Alms Houses, had been a monthly nurse in her younger days but now too elderly to look after new babies, she cared for Thomas and was with him when he died on the ninth of April.

The year after Elizabeth's death, two of their children were married - Edward married Julia Eliza Prince, in March 1852 in Chelsea, Middlesex[15] and Mary Ann, married a shoemaker, James Caird, in the following August in St Mary the Virgin in Mortlake High Street.[16]

St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake

St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake 2006

The witnesses to Mary Ann’s and James’ marriage were her father, Thomas Pratt; her brother, Edward Pratt; Edward’s wife, Julia Prince who signed with her maiden name, and Louisa Hannah Pratt. Thomas must have felt mixed emotions walking up the aisle with Mary Ann in the church where less than a year ago Elizabeth had been buried. Following Queen Victoria’s marriage the fashion had been for white wedding dresses but it is unlikely that Mary Ann would have had money to spare for a new dress and she probably bought some new lace and some pretty ribbons to decorate her best Sunday dress and wore some flowers in her hair. She would have entered the church on the arm of her father and James would normally have followed with his mother or another senior female member of his family but there are no Caird relations recorded on the marriage certificate so it is likely that Mary Ann’s aunt, Hannah Louise Pratt, stood in. The groomsmen and bridesmaids followed, the bridesmaid usually being an unmarried friend or relation of the bride. This may be why Edward’s wife signed her maiden name rather than her married name. Weddings usually took place at midday and the bells were rung to scare off any evil forces. Once in the gloomy church, because the high box pews were generally locked and unavailable for the people to sit down in, the wedding party would have crowded around the bride and groom whilst they said their vows.

James was also a shoemaker and he took over the little High Street shop when Thomas died continuing to employ Mary Ann's younger brother, Alfred.

James’ and Mary Ann’s first child, Mary was born in 1853 in Mortlake and was baptised in St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake by Rev. H H Swinney on Christmas Day.[17] In 1856 their second child James was baptised in the same church.[18]

By 1859 the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race had become a regular event and many people came to watch; it would have been a crowded, noisy event with many steam boats, barges and even pleasure craft on the river following the race. James and Mary Ann were quite likely watching that year, when the Cambridge boat sank.

James and Mary Ann had another daughter, Julia, who was born on 26 December 1860 and baptised on 27 January 1861 in St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake.[19] In about 1860 the field between the shop and the railway station was opened up as a public space and perhaps Mary Ann took her children to play on the new Mortlake Green.

On the night of the 1861 census James and Mary Ann were still living in her parents’ old shop. By now her parents' old neighbours, James Page and John Lydford had left and their new neighbours were Richard Cronchey, the grocer from next door but one who expanded his business into two shops, and William Palmer the new baker.[20]

Whilst Mary Ann was pregnant with her fourth and last child she may have watched the old houses, barn and stables opposite being demolished and then the progress of the new brewery building that was constructed in their place. Emma Maria, was baptised on 3 October 1869 in St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake.[21]

Tragedy came to the little shop in May 1875 when James and Mary Ann’s eldest daughter, Mary, died aged only 21 and was buried on 18 May 1875 in Mortlake.[22]

James died in early January 1891 and was buried on 5 January, in grave number W-177, in the Old Mortlake Burial Ground and recorded in the burial register for St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake.[23] Now without a husband Mary Ann could no longer maintain the business. James must have been a member of the Master Bootmakers’ Benevolent Institution[24] because when Mary Ann had to give up the shop she and her daughter Julia went to live in the "Bootmakers' Cottages", a row of fourteen small cottages built in about 1850 for retired member bootmakers or their widows and known locally as "All Soles". At the time of the 1891 census they were living at 1 Bootmaker Institute, Mortlake and Julia was working as a general domestic servant.[25]

Mary Ann’s younger brother, Alfred, lived in the family home most of his life. He did leave for a short period around 1861 to live in Chelsea near his brother Edward but he came home again to live with James and Mary Ann. After James' death, Alfred moved out of the High Street and by the time of the census on 5 April 1891, just three months later, he was living at No 1 Sheen Vale Cottages, Mortlake, with his occupation recorded as shoemaker.[26] But Alfred seems to have been unable to manage on his own and on 19 August 1893 he was taken into the Richmond Union Workhouse by his brother and sister. He gave his age as 60 and his religion as Church of England.[27] He was still in the workhouse eight years later at the time of the 1901 census where his occupation was given as shoemaker bootmaker.[28] He never married and sometime after supper on Thursday 10th October he died in the workhouse aged 68.[29] He was buried on 15 Oct 1901 in the Old Mortlake Burial Ground in grave number O-133 with James Young (buried 25 June 1901) and Annie Annely (Annie, who was buried on 29 July 1901, was also in the Richmond Union Workhouse in 1901).[30] The grave was probably a common grave and is now unmarked.

On 31 March 1901 Mary Ann was living at 7 Bootmaker Institute,[31] Mortlake presumably having moved to the smaller cottage when her daughter stopped living with her. When she died in July 1903, probably at her cottage, she was the last of this Pratt family in Mortlake. She was buried in the same grave as James in the Old Mortlake Burial Ground (W-177) on Saturday 4 July 1903.[32] The grave is now unmarked but originally may have had a simple wooden cross.

Mary Ann was less than 10 years old when her father brought her to Mortlake where she lived for the next sixty five years – all but the last two and a half in the little shop in the High Street.