Number 7

Back 7

Fanny Harris standing by the brewhouse behind number 7.

John Harris in number 8 worked as a labourer at a local steelworks, and Fanny had an even harder job looking after her 9 children. They were:

Elizabeth, Martha, Sarah, Benjamin, John (who died at the age of 3), Harriet (known as Daisy), Mary, Fanny, and Clara.

By this time all but 2 had married. They shared the house with one of their daughters (Daisy) and her family.

Their eldest child Lizzie (Elizabeth), never went to school. She worked at Darlaston Nuts and Bolts along with Daisy and Sarah.

Sarah was a button screwer which meant that she operated a thread cutting machine, which Lizzie cleaned as part of her job.

The works, nicknamed "Bogie Wilkes" was situated in cemetery road at James Bridge alongside the railway. They worked around 55 hours a week, including Saturday mornings, and had a half hour’s walk to and from work, which must have taken even longer after a hard day

They all worked there until they married, as was usual practice in those days. The buildings at James Bridge are now gone, but were still standing only a few years ago.

What remained of Darlaston Nuts and Bolts in the late 1990s.

Daisy, whose real name was Harriet, got her nickname because she often sang the song "Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do".

Young Fanny became heavily involved in The Salvation Army, an interest that she kept all of her life.

Sarah and Henry Flavell enjoyed going to the theatre when they were courting. They went to the Queens Hall which stood in Willenhall Street. It became known locally as "The Blood Tub" because every play contained at least one murder. Two of their favourites were Sweeny Todd, and a murder play called "Maria Martin and the murder in the Red Barn".

As the children began to grow-up and marry, many changes took place at number 8. Lizzie married Sam Small, and moved to number 12 Factory Street, Martha married Harry Lunn and moved to Back 9 in the Old Yard.

Sarah married Henry Flavell, a canal boatman. They moved to 5 Court, 2 House, Willenhall Street, but within a few years returned to live in Back 10.

Benjamin married Laura Davis, and moved to 25 Factory Street.

Daisy Whitehouse.

Fred and Clara Perrins.

The house must have seemed quite empty when the children had gone, but this did not last for long because Daisy married Bill Whitehouse, and they moved into the kitchen.

Clara then married Fred Perrins and they lived in the front room. Mary and Fanny, who never married, lived upstairs, as did John and Fanny.

Fred Perrins had two brothers, Jack and George. Fred had a gin pit at Moxley near to what is now Castle View Road. Jack and George dug the coal while Fred drove the horse and cart, and delivered the coal. They had a winch with a bucket on the end, and  to go up or down the shaft they put one foot in the empty bucket, and held on to the rope.

The horse, cart and coal were kept on a small patch of land by the side of the old yard, and sometimes Fred used to take people out for a ride in the cart on Sunday mornings. They also had a wharf by the canal in Bentley Road South. Coal was delivered here by canal boat, and they had the hard task of unloading the coal from the boat, and later putting it into sacks, each containing 1cwt., and loading them onto the cart for delivery.

George was also a dustman, he lived with his wife Lilian in the front room of number 10, in which they also opened a small shop.

Jack moved into a lodging house at Moxley, then started living rough. He began sleeping in the brewhouse behind number 10, and was found dead there one morning.

When Laura Davis married Benjamin it was her second marriage, she originally married Fred Firm whose brother Enoch will appear later.

Fred died of tuberculosis at the age of 23, and Sarah remembered meeting him on his way home from the doctor's after being told he had the disease. She remembered him walking down the street, crying to himself with tears flowing down his cheeks.

Fred and Laura had two children , a boy called Dick, and a girl called Laura.

Harry Lunn Worked at the nearby sewage works and also made pikeletts, which he sold locally.

Mr. and Mrs. Bliss who lived in number 7.