This article has been written with information provided by Alan Knight in memory of his cousin Margaret Brooks who did extensive research on her family history.

Hold onto your hats here as this is a real ‘tour de force’ linking so many of the Chrishall village families!

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Edwin and Ann Wells

In the 1881 census there was a family called Wells living in Brick Row in Chrishall. Edwin and Ann Wells lived in one of the tiny cottages with children Frederick, Ada and Nellie as well as a stepson Walter. And they have a fascinating story.

The Wells family do not appear on the 1871 census ten years earlier so it seems they had arrived in the village during those ten years. Edwin was born at Harpenden in 1828 and married Anne Goode in December 1861 (he was 35, Ann 33). They were married in the Parish of All Hallows, London Wall in the City of London. Edwin gave his profession as Engineer and his father, Thomas Wynch Wells was a Gamekeeper. Ann’s father, George Goode, was a Bricklayer.

Thomas and Ann came from the Driffield part of Yorkshire where they were established engineers in the steam traction engine industry. It seems they brought elements of that business to Chrishall and the surrounding parishes in the mid 19th century and then moved on to North London at the turn of the century. This would explain the fact that in the 1881 census Edwin and his sons, Frederick and Walter, are all listed as ‘Locomotive Engine Drivers’. At some point in the next few years they moved to Hogs Lane, where the family is recorded on the 1891 census.

David Goode was living with the family at this time. He was the brother of Ann. He never married and is described as being lame but he worked as a joiner.

Frederick Wells

By 1901 Edwin and Ann’s eldest son had his own family. Frederick was married to Alice and they lived at Broad Green with children Sarah, Alice and James plus Harriet Wallman. Harriet was the elder Alice’s sister and was blind.

(Frederick and Alice’s daughter, also called Alice, became an Industrial Chemist as did her daughter Margaret. It is mostly Margaret’s research, and her collection of pictures, that we have to thank for this article.)

By 1911 Frederick had moved his family to Pound Farm at Hitchin and it is probably here that he invented a ‘mole drainer’ to drain the fields. You can see him pictured with this invention below. 

However at some point between 1901 and 1911 it seems Frederick and his family lived at Mill House as there is a picture of the children at the front of the house (see the picture at the top of this article). It was these children, Sarah, Alice and James, who wrote down the tales from their grandfather which we will come to shortly. We also have a note that Sarah enjoyed doing tapestry.

Ada Wells

Ada, Edwin and Ann’s first daughter, married James Cane and they lived in Broad Green. In 1901 they had children Maggie (12), Grace (10), Hilda (8) and Violet (4). James Cane was Eleanor Brooks’ half-brother, so links to another village family who lived in Church Road. In 1901 James is listed as a Thrashing Machine Labourer (or threshing machine) and in 1911 as an Agricultural Machinist.

To return to Edwin, he had led quite an exciting life before working on the traction engines.  He had travelled twice round the world, was an expert naturalist and taxidermist and also an apothecary and gamekeeper in his own right. He went to South America (Mato Grosso) with an aristocratic naturalist in the capacity of a taxidermist, to stuff and mount the birds. However fever struck, the lord leading the expedition died and the authorities burnt everything including all of their possessions. Edwin was left in the clothes he stood up in! He worked his way home on a ship. He was also an engine driver on the Stockton and Darlington line and then worked for John Fowler of Leeds making steam engines.

Edwin was obviously a good story teller and regaled his grand-children with his stories. Amazingly they decided to write them down and thus the “Fireside Tales of Grandad Migs” was created. Grandad Migs was how the family knew him. And if you want to read the full tales you can see a copy in the Archive. Most of them don’t concern Chrishall directly but to give you a little taste we will finish with a short tale from Grandad Migs that does concern Chrishall. Here is the story recorded, it is thought by Alice:

“You remember how Father used to tell us about old John Rumbold [Rumble?]. How he eluded the keepers on Charlie Pigg’s land down by the church, where the land sloped from the church to the brook. There is a ditch with running water from the farm buildings to the brook, about a quarter of a mile long. John had laid a snare, and it had caught a hare, so the keepers laid in wait for him all one day. The hare disappeared from the snare as if by magic. They didn’t see it go, and it was broad daylight. He had crawled up the long ditch on his hands and knees, reached through the grass without showing himself, returning the same way to get safely away.”

John Rumble lived with his family in Crawley End. 

Thank you to Alan, and Margaret, for sharing Grandad Migs and his tales with us. It all adds to the village tapestry, as I’m sure Sarah would have appreciated.

Above: a drawing of Edwin Wynch Wells – Grandad Migs – and below a photograph