50. Daniel and Mary Ann Lambert of England

Daniel Lambert was born in 1840 in Horsehay, Dawley, Shropshire. His parents were Jesse and Sarah Lambert.

Mary Ann Lambert was born in 1844 in Guernsey. Her parents were Richard and Elizabeth Barnard.

(This was page updated in Mar 2021 with new information and photos from cousin Joan Allum, and further research.)

Mary Ann's family had moved from London to Stirchley to run the Rose & Crown pub. Her mother had died in 1851, at age 47, so Mary Ann had kept house for her father, and presumably helped run the pub. Her father died in died in 1868.

Daniel's father Jesse was employed by the Coalbrookdale Company as an ironworker in Horsehay, and the family lived there in 1841 and probably in 1851 (somewhere in Dawley for sure). Horsehay is about three miles from the Rose & Crown, across Dawley and the area that is now Telford Town Park, and was then a heavily industrialising area. The Company, under the Darby family was a relatively enlightened employer and provided free schooling for employees' male children in the stable loft at Horsehay farm. 

In 1846, at just about the time Daniel was old enough to go to school, Darby built a new school with a girls department being added in 1849. The school was at Pool Hill - named after Horsehay Pool - and built from local brick in a very Gothic style. Dawley Heritage tell us that the school was built to accommodate more than 700 children but only had 270 pupils on roll in 1855, and 297 in 1903. Pupils would stay until the age of at least twelve, when they would usually join the Works.

Pool Hill School (Ironbridge Gorge Museum via Dawley Heritage)

 

Pool Hill was a British School, that is, one set up by the 'British and Foreign School Society for the Education of the Labouring and Manufacturing Classes of Society of Every Religious Persuasion'. In many places these maintained an active rivalry with the 'National Schools' of the Established Church. Later in the C19, government assumed responsibility for elementary education following the Elementary Education Act 1870, the British schools became locally administered board schools. In the case of Pool Hill, running of the School was taken over by Dawley School Board in 1887 when the Company could no longer afford to maintain the school because of the trade depression at that time. There is a pamphlet online, authored by the last headmaster, Rev C. M. Haynes, which gives a fuller account of the school, following its destruction by arson in 1977.

It seems likely that Daniel attended the school, and - instead of going into the Works - he stayed on as a member of staff, as a photograph survives of him as headmaster.

Daniel Lambert, Headmaster with Staff at Pool Hill School

I've just found - in Brunel University's records - that he left in 1869. It was in that year that Daniel and Mary Ann were married at All Saints Church, St John's Wood in Middlesex. There is a story and picture of the church here. Mary Ann's father had died in the previous August (and had moved to Dawley before he died). He left up to £800 (perhaps £50k now). 

Getting married in London seems like a big step: perhaps it suggests ongoing connexion with the Barnard family, who had historically been better off than the Lamberts. It was a double wedding - Mary Ann's sister Betsy married Shropshire professor of music, James Smart. Daniel was ambitious, I'm told. The family story is that he liked to hob nob with opera stars (allegedly including Caruso, but I note that his first London season was in 1902).

The photos below were taken in the studios of Samuel Ellis, Wellington (4 miles from Horsehay) - Ellis' first recorded photos were taken in 1870 - he was a watchmaker from c1863.

Daniel Lambert and Mary Ann Lambert née Barnard

In 1871, Daniel was a 'British schoolmaster' in Dorking. (Remember, his mother was illiterate.) They lived on Station Road - the school was on the adjoining Back Lane (now Church St). I will visit Dorking as soon as it is sensible! Coincidentally, Dorking is where the Little family were from.The first Dorking British School site is now the town museum. Ironically, the second site is now a Catholic School - you can still see the 'British School' lettering high on the front, albeit painted over. The British School itself moved, changed to a state school, and changed its name - but is still proud of its heritage. The Brunel records show that Daniel left in 1872. 

 

The births of his middle children indicate that the family returned to Dawley. Perhaps he returned to Pool Hill to be headmaster. There is a family story that Daniel was fired from one job for being asleep in the school house when the inspector called! We know that there was a school house at Pool Hill.

Before the records were computerised, it took a while to locate the family in 1881. It turns out that Daniel was an assurance agent in Lancaster; they lived at 75 Windermere Rd. My photos of Lancaster are here. The couple's youngest child was born in Barrow-in-Furness two years earlier (equally hard to find!) I remember Barrow as an extraordinary place from when I visited in the 1980s. Rows of terraces, loomed over by the huge new Devonshire Dock Hall, then a little bridge to Walney Island with its family beach.

In all, Daniel and Mary Ann had five children:

• 57.1.1 Florence Elizabeth Lambert (1870, Dorking)
• 57.1.2 Jesse James Richard Lambert (1873, Dawley)
• 57.1.3 Gertrude Mary Lambert (1874, Dawley)
• 57.1.4 William Barnard Lambert (1876, Dawley)
• 57.1.5 Alice Elena Lambert (1879, Barrow-in-Furness)

More on these individuals in Chapter 57.

By 1891, Daniel had returned to teaching, and was a schoolmaster in Sutton Coldfield; the family lived in Rectory Road. Mary Ann died later that year, aged about 47. 

Daniel Lambert

In 1911, Daniel was retired and living at 1 Wood Lane, Erdington, with his middle daughter, Gertrude, her farm labourer husband, William Wallis, and their son James. 

Daniel Lambert

 

Daniel is recorded as having died in Meriden nr Solihull in 1927. On some measure, Meriden is the centre of the universe, or at least of England, which may not be the same thing. There is a roundabout there to commemorate this fact, and a cross. However, the registration area is much wider than the village, and I've now learned that, after Erdington, the Wallis family lived at Hurst Green Farm, Minworth. This is within the Meriden district, and a highly likely final berth for Daniel, especially given that there is a Wheaver family recollection of visits 'to the farm'.

Meriden Cross (my photo)

Next (Daniel's siblings)