The Great War: A–M · Story 28

James Hathaway (1863-1940)

Not all those who served away from home were in the military. Some performed important duties in this country to help the war effort.

James Hathaway had been born in Wolverhampton on the 15th March 1863. His father, an Iron Worker, had married Lydia Brant on the 25th October 1857 but the family moved to Ashton in Lancashire (probably Ashton-on-Ribble, now part of Preston) where James senior was working as a “Puddler” at an Iron Works. This was a skilled trade, turning brittle pig iron into wrought iron using a furnace. It was extremely hot, hard work in a toxic atmosphere and men usually died in their thirties.

It was Lydia who died, in 1872, in her early thirties and James remarried and moved to Aspull, near Wigan. He was there in the 1881 Census with his new wife, Margaret, and two new children. His eighteen-year-old son James, however, had moved out and was boarding in Aspull and had become an iron worker. He was lodging with widow, Elizabeth Robinson and her children.

The family seems to have stayed in Lancashire and his father continued in the ironworks. At some point in the 1880s he decided that this life was not for him and he moved south to London. On the 24th February 1890 he joined the Metropolitan Police Force at Old Scotland Yard. This was to be his career for the next twenty-five years. On April 13th 1890 he married Elizabeth Bigg at St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square. He was living in Leicester Square at the time.

There may have been some urgency to the marriage for the 1891 Census, taken on the 5th April, has the couple with their young son Thomas who was nine months old. They were now sharing 26 Bidborough Street, south of the Euston Road, near Kings Cross Station. By 1901 they had moved to Marcellus Road in Islington which had been built in 1882 and was demolished ninety years later. In 1897 Charles Booth and the Salvation Army produced a Poverty Map of London. His assistant, George H. Duckworth, met Inspector William Dyball in the Police Station, next to Hornsey Road Baths and Laundry, and walked him round the local area. Marcellus Road was coloured light blue on the map indicating it was a “Poor” area.

In the years following the Census Elizabeth died, although I have not found the death. James married again to Eliza Ann Martin at St Barnabas Church in Hornsey Road, Islington on the 25th July 1909. We see from the 1911 Census that Eliza had been born in St Ives in Huntingdonshire and that the couple were living at 251 Hornsey Road in Holloway in London. Eliza was 38 and would have been considered old to start a family, but the children came. Agnes Martin was born on the 24th February 1913 and Walter Ernest on the 26th November 1914, both baptised at St Marks in Tollington Park in Islington.

Meanwhile. Thomas James Hathaway, the only child from James’s first marriage had emigrated to America and in 1917 was living in San Francisco and working as a Hotel Clerk. He was married with a four-month-old baby.

The war came, and James continued working as a Constable, but on the 8th March 1915 he retired from the Metropolitan Police Force. At the time he was in the Highgate Division and had served 25 years and 6 days. He was entitled to a pension of £64. 14s. 1d. a year.

What happened next? How did the family end up in Leveratt’s Yard in Ringstead in 1918 with James an “absent voter”? When we look back at His wife’s family we see how it may have happened. He parents, in 1911, were living in Leveratt’s Yard (or Row) in Ringstead. Edward was born in Hilton and Edith in Toseland which matches the earlier records. He was working on a local farm and we see from the 1901 Census that they have been in the village at least ten years, along with their children. The couple were now living on their own and perhaps Eliza hoped for some help and support with her young family, from her family, while her husband was away.

We do not know if James had a part-time job to supplement his pension but at some point in the war he was called to use his old skills for the war effort. The 1918 Absent Voter’s List for Ringstead shows that he was in the “Police, Vickers Ltd”.

Vickers Limited had started out in Sheffield as a steel foundry and became famous for making church bells. This led on to work on shafts and propellers for ships, armour plating and then artillery such as machine guns. It expanded into ships, tanks, torpedoes and airships and aircraft. The various products were produced in factories and shipyards all over the United Kingdom so we cannot be sure where he was based.

After the war he would have returned home and we see the family in Leveratt’s Yard through the 1920s and early 30s. Eliza’s father, Edward Martin, died in 1926 and Edith followed in 1933. Sadly, Eliza died in 1935 and in the 1939 Register of England and Wales we see the widowed James, a “Retired Police Officer” living in the Council Houses in Denford Road. Living with him is daughter Agnes, a “Garment Stitcher” and son Walter a “Piece Sole Parer and Grip Clicker”

James died the following year aged seventy-six.