Margaret Davies

G-grandmother of Norma Margaret Oliver

Born:

1826 Tregaron, Cardiganshire, Wales

Baptised:

27 Nov 1826 St Mary's Church, Strata Florida, Cardiganshire, Wales

Married:

9 Oct 1853 St Bartholomew's Church, Sydenham, Kent, England to David Price

Died:

19 Feb 1902 Herne Hill, Surrey, England. Age 76

Cause of death:

Chronic nephritis and cerebral haemorrhage

Buried:

22 Feb 1902 West Norwood Cemetery, Norwood, Surrey, England

Timeline

1826

Nov 1826

1831-1835

1841

Oct 1853

1857-1860

1861-1868

1870-1896

1901-1902

Feb 1902

Born at the farmhouse Maes-llyn, Tregaron, Cardiganshire, Wales [1]

Baptised at St Mary's Church, Strata Florida, Cardiganshire, Wales [1]

Lived with parents in Tregaron, Cardiganshire, Wales [2] [3]

Lived with parents at Lower Water St, Tregaron, Cardiganshire, Wales [4]

Married David Price at St Bartholomew's Church, Sydenham, Kent. Lived at Sydenham [5]

Lived with family at 15 Darlington Tce, Southwark, Surrey [6] [7]

Lived with family at 15 Southwark Bridge Rd, Southwark, Surrey [8] [9]. Worked as a seamstress in 1861.

Lived with family at 245 Southwark Bridge Rd, Southwark, Surrey [10] [11] [12a and 12b] [13a and 13b] [14].

Lived with family at 189 Norwood Rd, Herne Hill, Surrey [15a and 15b] [16]

Death at home from chronic nephritis and cerebral haemorrhage. Buried at West Norwood Cemetery, Norwood, Surrey [16] [17]

Biography

Early years

Margaret was born in Maes-llyn ("lake field") a stone farmhouse located about 3km north-east of Tregaron, near a small lake that gave the farmhouse its name. She was the fifth child of her parents, Daniel and Margaret Davies. Her father, Daniel, was a saddler by trade but seems to have been labouring on the farm at the time of her birth [1].

In November 1826, she was baptised at St Mary's church in nearby Strata Florida (known in Welsh as Ystrad Fflur, meaning "vale of flowers", which is also the meaning of the commonly used Latin name, Strata Florida). The church next to the ruins of an old Cistercian monastery, which provided the stone material for the church [1] [18] 19].

St Mary's Church, Strata Florida, Cardiganshire

Inside St Mary's church (left) and the baptismal font where Margaret was christened as a baby (right)

After Margaret's birth, the family moved to Tregaron proper, settling just outside the main town by the River Brennig, where her father resumed work as a saddler [2] [3] [4]. Her father would sometimes travel for his work and her mother, Margaret, worked as a baker to also help support the family [4].

Tregaron was a small market town, located in the heart of Cardiganshire in a rural area predominated by farms. In the early 1830s it has only c.2,300 inhabitants, of which about 800 lived in the town itself. Although it had very little trade in and of itself, Tregaron was well known for its fairs, which were well attended. The fairs were held in March, May and December for horses, pigs, cattle and sheep, with the March fair also being a large one for stockings. The livestock fairs reflected the fact that Tregaron was located on a strategic point for routes over the nearby Cambrian Mountains, so it acted as the location where drovers would gather before taking livestock over the mountains. In fact, in his earlier years, Margaret's father David was just such a drover, taking cattle from Tregaron to London [20] [21] [22] [23].

Move to London

In her 20s, Margaret moved to London - while we don't know the specific reason why, London attracted many people from rural communities for the work opportunities it provided. A family story has been passed down about Margaret's first days in London, where she would say "good morning" to everyone she passed, like she would have back in Tregaron [24].

We know that, in 1850, Margaret gave birth to a boy named Francis. The father of the child was named as Francis Penrose Thurston, a law clerk from Holborn, London. As an unwed mother, she returned home to Tregaron where she baptised the boy and, initially, he stayed with her parents while she returned to London (as an aside, Francis Penrose Thurston married a Mary Moody the following year in 1851, and went on to work as a clerk to the Sheriff of Middlesex. There's no indication he had anything further to do with Margaret or their son) [25] [26a and 26b].

After returning to London, we don't know Margaret's exact movements although she is possibly the Margaret Davis working as a domestic housekeeper in Mile End in the 1851 census [27].

Marriage to David Price

St Bartholomew's Church, Sydenham

In 1853, Margaret was in Sydenham, south London (although, then, technically Kent) and it was there that she married David Price at St Bartholomew's Church on the 9th October. David was a soap boiler (soap maker) who had moved to London about a decade earlier and was originally from a village outside Lampeter, not far from Margaret's home town of Tregaron [5].

David appears to have accepted that Margaret had a child and, by 1861, the family were living in Southwark, south London with Margaret's son Francis and their boys, David, Joseph and Thomas. At that time, while David worked at a soap factory, Margaret took in sewing work as a seamstress [8].

Margaret ultimately went on to have four more children, eight in total, of which seven were with David. Welsh was almost certainly spoken by Margaret and David as their mother tongue - at the time, Welsh was still the main spoken language throughout the majority of Wales and certainly for those who were native to Cardiganshire. Welsh certainly seems to have been part of the family as Margaret's granddaughter, Nell Lane, was teacher Welsh to her grandchildren as part of their heritage [28] [29]. Singing was also part of that family life, with two of Margaret's daughters, Ann (known as Jeanette) and Eleanor (known as Nellie) both forging successful singing careers.

Margaret lived in Southwark, on Southwark Bridge Road, with her husband and family for over 30 years, only moving with David in their old age to Herne Hill, to live close to their daughter, Ann [15a and 15b] [16].

Southwark Bridge

Latter years and death

Norwood Rd, Herne Hill, 1910

Margaret lived to the age of 76, dying at her home on Norwood Road, Herne Hill on the 19th February 1902 from a cerebral haemorrhage and after suffering chronic nephritis. She was buried on the 22nd February 1902 at West Norwood Cemetery, where her husband would be buried next to her only a few months later [16] [17].

Source information

Margaret Davies, Baptismal record, St Mary Strata Florida Parish Register [Church of England], 27 Nov 1826, Record no: 275, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Mary Davies, Baptismal record, St Caron Tregaron Parish Register [Church of England], 16 Oct 1831, Record no: 730, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Joseph Davies, Baptismal record, St Caron Tregaron Parish Register [Church of England], 26 Apr 1835, Record no: 864, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Margaret Davies [1841], Census return for Lower Water St, Tregaron, Cardiganshire, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]. Margaret's father is not with the family and is instead enumerated at Llanwyrd, Breconshire and the assumption is he was there for work-related reasons.
David Price and Margaret Davies, England & Wales Marriage Certificate, Registered 4th Quarter 1853 in Lewisham, Record no: 77, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Joseph Davies Price, England & Wales Birth Certificate, Registered 2nd Quarter 1857 in St George the Martyr Southwark, Record no: 216, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Thomas Price, England & Wales Birth Certificate, Registered 2nd Quarter 1860 in St George the Martyr Southwark, Record no: 166, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Margaret Price [1861], Census return for Southwark Bridge Rd, Southwark, Surrey, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Eleanor Mary Price, England & Wales Birth Certificate, Registered 2nd Quarter 1868 in St George Southwark, Record no: ..4, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Alice Margaret Price, England & Wales Birth Certificate, Registered 4th Quarter 1870 in St Saviour Surrey, Record no: 193, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Margaret Price [1871], Census return for Southwark Bridge Rd, Southwark, Surrey, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Margaret Price [1881 - page 1 and page 2], Census return for Southwark Bridge Rd, Southwark, Surrey, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Margaret Price [1891 - page 1 and page 2], Census return for Southwark Bridge Rd, Southwark, Surrey, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
David Price, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1956, Borough of Southwark, Division of Southwark West, 1896, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Margaret Price [1901 - page 1 and page 2], Census return for Norwood Rd, Lambeth, Surrey, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Margaret Price, England & Wales Death Certificate, Registered 2nd Quarter 1902 in Lambeth, Record no: 91, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Margaret Price, Burial record, West Norwood Cemetery Burial Register, 22 Feb 1902, Record no: A31005, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Strata Florida, Teifi Faith Trail [teififaithtrail.wales]
St Mary Strata Florida, National Churches Trust [www.nationalchurchestrust.org]
Elinor Price, Baptismal record, St Caron Tregaron Parish Register, 16 Feb 1817, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Tregaron, Worrall's Directory of South Wales, 1875, page 404, Google Books [books.google.co.uk]
Tregaron and area, Discover Ceredigion [www.discoverceredigion.wales]
Tregaron, Pigot's Directory for South Wales, 1844, page 83 Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Conversations with Sheila Capes, granddaughter of Margaret Davies
Francis Thurston, Baptismal record, St Caron Tregaron Parish Register [Church of England], 15 Sep 1850, Record no: 1299, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Francis Thurston [1851 - page 1 and page 2], Census return for Bridge St, Tregaron, Cardiganshire, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Margaret Davis [1851], Census return for Assembly Row, Mile End Old Town, Middlesex, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
19th century: History of the Welsh language, Wikipedia, Last edited 12 Feb 2024 [en.wikipedia.org]
Conversations with Jenny Batten, granddaughter of Nell Lane