Family heirlooms and our visit to the Grand Theatre - Mamma Mia! in The View from the Terrace

I have 3 family heirlooms that have been handed down for several generations. They are a jug and 2 cups, white china with a floral design and all with individual gold leaf lettering.

They used to sit on my mother’s dresser. She inherited them from my great aunt and she had them from her mother, my great grandmother. Mum used to call one of the cups a christening cup and, I can’t believe this, but I never really looked at them. I assumed that the little cup was great grandma’s christening cup and didn’t really think about the jug or the other cup. After Mum died I wrapped them in newspaper and packed them away.

When I started getting interested in family history I got them out and was surprised to find that, though the smaller cup did appear to be a christening cup, it wasn’t great grandma’s. She was Mary Ann Rogers and was born in 1854. The cup said H E Rogers 1841. It didn’t take long to work out that this must be her father’s sister Harriet Eliza. The year of birth matched and she was the only one with those initials. The jug said W M Rogers. Great Grandma’s grandparents, Harriet’s parents, were William and Mahala. There isn’t an and between the 2 initials but I think it must have been their’s. There is no date on the jug, it could have been for an anniversary. The larger cup was the puzzle. It said John and Eliza Hughes 1841. At that time there were no Hughes in the family tree. I spent hours trying to work out who they were. Could they be a pair of twins, but if so who’s. Harriet was the only girl in the family so they couldn’t belong to a married daughter. Could they be Harriet’s Godparents?

Eventually my puzzle was answered by a chance discovery on a local history website followed by an equally chance meeting on a genealogy site. One day I was browsing through a website about the history of Wolverhampton when I came across an article from and old magazine from the early 1900s. The article was about a man called William Rogers, I did notice the name but he was too young to have been my 3x great grandfather and the occupation was wrong. Both William and Rogers were common names so I thought it was a coincidence. This William had been a postal guard in Wolverhampton from 1855 - 1876. It was an interesting article about how post was handled in those days and mentioned that he was trusted with the the keys to the tollgates of the town so that the gatekeepers didn’t have to get up to let him though. Towards the end the article mentioned that he was now 76 and came from a long lived family. His father, lived to be 89 and lived in North Street. That caught my attention. My 3x great grandfather lived in North Street and lived to around that age. I checked and it was indeed him. This article was about his son, my great great grandfather’s brother. But another fascinating item was to come. The article also said that William’s grandmother lived to be 101! Now I had the names of both of his grandmothers. They were my 4x great grandmother’s but I didn’t know the birth dates of either.
Here is a link to the article
Wolverhampton and District old Toll Gates

I spent weeks trying to find this grandmother. I searched the censuses for both of the names I had with no result and I couldn’t find either in the death registers for 1864. Either she was living in another area, there was a missing record, or her husband had died and she had remarried. The latter seemed most likely but, without her name I couldn’t find her.

Then, on a genealogy site I met a man who was descended from Mahala’s sister, Jemima. She had married a Hughes, but he was Thomas. We were both researching Mahala and Jemima’s parents. I knew they were John and Elizabeth Orton and that there were 3 other children, Elizabeth, John and Ruth, but that was all. I wondered if 2 sisters had married 2 brothers and the couple on the cup were Mahala’s sister Elizabeth and her husband but there was no Elizabeth Hughes in the census of the right age.

Then one day I had an inspiration. I knew my ancestor died in 1864 aged 101 so I searched the 1861 census for all people aged 97/98 living in Wolverhampton. I hoped she was living in Wolverhampton, the family were originally from Stafford and all of her children had been born there or in nearby Walton on the Hill, but the ones I had traced so far had moved to Wolverampton. There couldn’t be that many. Actually I was surprised how many there were, about 15. Who says people didn’t live to be old in those days. I knew there were no Elizabeth’s of this age as I had already tried that but I came across an Elena Hughes. The name caught my attention and I looked at the record. When I brought up the original it looked to me like it said Eliza not Elena, could it be her? Then I noticed she was living with her daughter Ruth who was born in Walton on the Hill. Ruth was a widow so her surname wasn’t Orton but it had to be Mahala’s sister, her age was right and Walton was only a village. I had found her! Working back through the censuses I found Eliza’s second husband had been John Hughes. I had also found the couple who were on the cup.

It was an amazing experience to take that cup out of my china cabinet and realise I was holding something that had been made for my 4x great grandmother in 1842. I still don’t know what the occasion was. I had assumed they were Harriet’s Godparents but I have now found the record of her christening and that is not so.

It was this cup that I took to an antique valuing at a museum on the second day of our trip to Wolverhampton. Unfortunately there were no great discoveries. The man told me much what I expected. They were cheap mass produced items with a space left to put names and dedications on. So I am left wondering why the cups were made, were there more and these were the only ones to survive. How I wish I had looked at them when my great aunt still had them and asked her. She may have known more. It is still amazing though to think that those distant ancestors held them in their hands and now I have them.

After the valuing we had a lovely lunch at the museum cafe. I wanted to visit the nearby cemetery to find some of the places where my ancestors were buried. Unfortuantely there wasn’t time to look at the museum itself which is a big house belonging to a local family that was donated to the town and has been kept as it was in the Edwardian days.

The cemetery was just around the corner, a big old place with many different trees and snowdrops in bloom. I had been in touch with the Bereavement Services who had given me the locations of some of the graves on a map.

The first one I looked for was my mother’s little brother. She never knew him as he was the first child and only lived a few days but she used to tell me how her mother would sometimes sit on the sofa and weep for him. I wonder if that was on the anniversary of the time she lost him. Strangely he was born around the same day as our daughter. I don’t know the exact day, I must get the birth certificate. I had hoped he would have a headstone but there was none. My grandparents were still quite badly off at the time they lost him. At least I did find the area and it is quite a lovely spot for a final resting place. If he had lived he would have been my Uncle William, so I told him I had come to see him and that his mother had told my mother, his younger sister, about him and that I have him on the family tree.

We found some other ancestors too, some great grandparents, great great grandparents and a different great great grandfather. None had headstones but I knew from my map where they were. Then it was time to return to our hotel for a little rest before our theatre outing that evening.

We enjoyed a fantastic evening. Before going in we had a quick drink in the bar which was actually called Arthur’s. I found from a plaque on the wall that it was named for the theatre’s founder but it was a nice coincidence that my grandfather who was in the orchestra there for 26 years was called Arthur. When we got to our seats In the top circle we found there was very little leg room but fortunately the end seats were not taken so we moved along. I suppose people were shorter when the theatre was built!

I am a huge ABBA fan. The 70s were my decade, the best years of my life and their music brings back some wonderful memories. I am not sure how many times I have watched the film of Mamma Mia but it’s very many. Seeing it on the stage was a whole different experience because of the interaction between the singers and the audience. I could see a lady in the front row of the stalls really into the music swinging her arms. There was a little girl about 3 rows in front of us who was standing up and doing all of the dance moves. She reminded me so much of Cat. I remember taking her to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the age of 2 and she was standing on the seat joining in. This little girl was good, maybe in 10 years time she will be on the stage. During the encore about two thirds of the audience were on their feet singing along. Probably those that weren’t were simply a little too old but were up in spirit.

The next day was our last. We planned to leave after lunch. When I drew back the cutains it was snowing. It looked very pretty and very soon the skies cleared and the sun came out. I had found that we were very near to the area where my great grandmother kept a pub about 100 years ago. We decided to go and look around the area, although i knew the pub was long gone. Dad’s cousin had told me that his father, my great uncle had worked at a brewery and that the pub had stood opposite. We found the road, the pub and all of the houses had gone and there were industrial units on the ground where they had been but the remains of the brewery were still there.

I have since discovered that Wolverhampton University run a building course and the students are rebuilding what they can of the brewery. It is so good that, after the mass destruction in the 60s, people are seeing that these old buildings are worth preserving. My father also grew up in this area before his family moved to the other end of the town.

Hubby wanted to go back to the museum for lunch as the cafe there was really good. We thought we could have a look around the place before leaving for home. Unfortunately it was closed for a school visit but the cafe was open. After another lovely lunch and a little look in the antique shop we set off for home.

There was one last place I wanted to visit and that was the shop my grandmother kept. We found it easily. It is now a mini mart so we decided to go in and buy a few things we needed. I was surprised at how small it was. It couldn’t have been more than 10 feet wide. It was strange to think of my grandmother plying her trade here and doing so well. Mum has told me so many stories about her childhood; how her father taught violin in the back room; how they sat in the little garden in the summer listening to the sound of a saw mill nearby and her dad would pretend it was a big bee flying around the flowers; how she would sit with her mum in the evenings when her dad was at the theatre and sometimes her mum would tell her of her little brother: and now it is the local grocery store.

We took one more detour down a back street to see what is left of the old Sunbeam factory where Dad and Granddad worked, part of it is now a Sikh temple! Then we set off for home.

Granddad Arthur violinist and musical director at the Grand Theatre

Grandma Annie who ran the millinery shop