Charles Green was the parish overseer for Darlaston in 1816. Green, born in London, married Elizabeth Bayley (1779–1844). They had four children. The first two George Washington (b.1810) and Charles Allen (1812–1892) were both born in New York. Their two sisters Mary Bayley (1815–1903) and Elizabeth Bills (b.1817) were born in Darlaston. George, Charles and Mary were all baptised on 3 September 1815 at St Lawrence’s parish church, Darlaston. Mary was married twice, first to John Whitehouse and then after his death to Joseph Whitehouse. Elizabeth married James Corbet[t] Lister.
George Washington Green and his wife Anne had at least three children: Martha, Henry and Frederick. In 1850, aged 38, Charles Allen Green married the 22-year-old Mary Yates at St Lawrence’s. They had five children: Charles (b.1851), George (b.1854), Thomas (b.1855), Joseph (b.1861) and Lizzie (b.1868).
The Report to the Commissioners on the Employment of Children 1843 took evidence from Charles Green and George Washington Green. Aged 62 at the time, Charles stated that he was a maltster and farmer. He had been a resident of Darlaston for 28 years meaning he and his family had arrived in Darlaston in 1814, two years before he became the overseer. He may have lived in Darlaston before he and Elizabeth went to New York: the 1798 land tax redemption for the parish lists a Chas Green as the occupier of a property owned by ‘Thacker’. Charles may have been related to George Green, listed in the 1818 directory as a victualler and maltster, at the White Lion, King Street. Pigot’s 1828–1829 directory gives Charles Green’s address as Church Street; White’s 1834 directory lists Charles Green as an innkeeper at the White Lion.
In the Commission report both Charles and George Washington Green spoke about the treatment of apprentices. Charles believed that previously they were ‘badly treated by some masters, ill-clothed and ill-fed’ and in rare cases ‘beaten unmercifully’. Those treated in such a manner, he declared, were parish apprentices from Lichfield, Stratford and Coventry who had premiums of four or five pounds. Premiums were amounts of money paid to a master or mistress to take the apprentice off a parish’s hands and it was Green’s conviction that masters cared little for their apprentices once the premiums had been received. Such treatment, he thought however, was less common than it used to be. Although there was more interest than previously, he was concerned about the lack of and desire for education in the area.
Coach-spring and file manufacturer George Washington Green, aged 30, thought the treatment of apprentices were ‘generally good; they have plenty to eat, are well-clothed, though roughly … and not cruelly beaten’. Judging from attendance at Sunday schools and subscriptions to them, he thought there was a desire for education. The standard of teaching he thought was generally low; better in the dissenting chapels than in the established church.
Until 1846 when the carriage spring and file making partnership at the Soho Works, Darlaston, was dissolved by mutual consent, George’s partners were Samuel Mills and Thomas Wells. He then seems to have changed direction. By the time of the 1851 Census when he was living in Church Street with his widowed father and their servant Sarah Horton, he described himself as a surveyor and architect.
Charles died in 1856. His will is extensive and shows his desire to ensure an equal, if gendered, distribution of his estate. It reveals that Charles was a significant property owner in addition to the 80 acres he farmed. The first two pages are largely concerned with the distribution of real estate and the income derived from it to be given to his two daughters. Through a series of trusts Mary Bayley Whitehouse inherited seven tenanted houses in Cock Street, Darlaston from which she was to receive the rents. These, Charles instructed, were to be kept in good order and repair. Elizabeth Bills Lister was to receive the same and in the same manner from property she inherited in Blakemore Lane, shops and houses in Pinfold Lane, and two houses and shops in Eldon Street. Elizabeth also received the land at Heath Fields ‘late in the occupation of Joseph Cockram’. In the event of the death of either sister without lawful issue, their share of Charles’ property was to be divided equally between the surviving sister and her two brothers. In leaving his daughters’ shares of his estate in trust, a common practice for the time, Charles Green’s legal authority extended beyond his death. Whilst in some ways this limited his daughters’ financial freedom, his stipulation that the money so derived was, in each case, for their ‘sole use and benefit’ protected it legally from their present or any future husbands. Such inheritance strategies attempted to give married women some financial security at a time when, upon marriage, women became the ‘property’ of their husbands and lost control of their finances unless marriage settlements had been drawn up beforehand.
Charles’ property in Church Street together with a brewhouse and malthouses in the occupation of his sons and the houses (about eight) in Washington Row were given to his son George. Five properties in King Street were given to son Charles. Both sons inherited their share of their father’s estate outright.
Lengthy instructions were given in the event of Charles’ trustees, Samuel Mills and William Carter, dying, neglecting, refusing or desiring to be discharged from their duties. In addition, the trustees were to sell Charles’ personal estate including his household goods and furniture and to call in the money owed to him to settle any outstanding debts and to pay his funeral and testamentary expenses. The residue was to be divided into four equal parts amongst his four children. In order that the trustees and executors of his estate could carry out their responsibilities, they were empowered from time to time to deduct from the estate the costs and expenses they incurred.
The 1849 Poll Books for Darlaston (recording those eligible to vote) gives Charles Green’s place of abode as a freehold house Church Street. Charles Allen Green of Church Street had a freehold house in Washington Row, and George Washington Green, also resident in Church Street, had a freehold warehouse and shops Bell Street.
What is unknown at present is when and why the Greens went to New York and what prompted their return.
Sources
London Gazette, 12 March 1846 (1846) part 1, p.1049
W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory, (1818)
Pigot and Co., National Commercial Directory [Part 2: Nottinghamshire–Yorkshire and North Wales] for 1828–29 (London and Manchester: J. Pigot and Co., 1828)
Pigot and Co., National Commercial Directory, [Derby–South Wales] (London: J. Pigot and Co. 1835)
Poll Books Darlaston (1849)
Report to the Commissioners on the Employment of Children (1843)
SRO, D1149/1, St Lawrence’s Parish Register, 1539–1855, Darlaston
SRO, D5728/1, St Lawrence’s Parish Register, 1838–1987, Darlaston
TNA, HO 107/979/4, Census 1841
TNA, HO 107/2022, Census 1851
TNA, RG 9/2010, Census 1861
TNA, IR23/80, Land Tax Redemption, Darlaston, Staffordshire, (1798)
TNA, PROB 11/2240, will of Charles Green, 17 Oct 1856
William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (Sheffield: 1834)
Thanks to Abigail Mackay for assisting with this research.
This is a work in progress subject, to change as new research is conducted.