The Barsby family

VICTORIAN FAMILY albums are an important source of social history because they were compiled with loving care from photographs of people and events which influenced the lives of those who went before. They are also a pictorial reference of ancestors and the way they lived and can provide a valuable link to anyone compiling their family tree.

Two years ago, Chris Kettle opened a large tin trunk containing family books and pictures that was stored at his home in Wimbledon. It had been handed down through the family and left to him by his mother twenty years before and although he browsed through from time to time, the contents had aroused little real interest.

But this time, one item did attract his attention and that was a family album containing portraits, photographs and postcards from a century or more ago and a little research revealed that it had been compiled by his maternal great grandmother Letitia. As the faces in the pages stared out at him from the past, he became curious and so began the quest to find out who they were and to give them names, a task that has already taken two years with searches through census records and military archives, discussions with relatives and several visits to Bourne.

The investigation is still not complete but has already revealed a large number of ancestors from the Barsby and Sandall families which are both old Bourne names and in the process he has discovered the story of a young girl who had the courage to take on a post of some responsibility and found love, marriage and family happiness in a strange town.

In the spring of 1861, Letitia Edis, then aged 18, left her home at Alwalton, near Peterborough, to look after her two young cousins living in West Street, Bourne, who had been recently orphaned, Sarah, aged 9, and Emma, aged 7. They were the children of John Barsby, a journeyman tailor, and his wife Mary Ann but John had died in 1854, aged 38, and Mary in February 1861, aged 44.

There were three other children who were able to look after themselves, Ellen, aged 13, who was working as a servant for a family living in the Austerby, Frederick, who was 16 and working as a farm labourer, and Thomas, aged 21, who was employed as an assistant by Frederick Green, master baker, with a house and trade premises in West Street where he also lived.

Letitia became romantically attached to Thomas and soon they were courting and in 1862 were married and in the next few years they had thirteen children, five girls, Mary, Ada, Ellen, Edith and Kate, and eight boys, John, Robert, George, Louis, William, Frederick, Thomas and Edgar.

It was during this period that the album was compiled, some showing scenes of Bourne during time of celebration although most are family portraits taken by local photographers working in Bourne during the 19th century, Joseph Flatters, Richard Bertolle, the Glendening Brothers, William Wyles, William Redshaw and later Ashby Swift.

Letitia left no diaries and so all we have from her memories are these photographs, collected and preserved with loving care, and now her great grandson has spent time filling in the gaps and linking the strands between one branch of the family and another from the records that survive and those that are now available through modern methods of retrieval, notably the Internet. The result is an endearing portrait of a typical Victorian family, here united with these pictures from the past.

Thomas was successful in his chosen career and soon owned his own bakery business. He died on 28th May 1918, aged 78. Letitia survived him by three years and died on 26th September 1921, aged 79, and both are buried together in the town cemetery with their youngest daughter, Kate, who had died a few weeks earlier on 22nd August, aged 36. Their tombstone is engraved with the words “Affectionately remembered” and “Rest after tribulation”.

The writing on the tombstone in the town cemetery at Bourne is difficult to read because the front is almost inaccessible, obscured by an ornamental cypress that has sprung up in the intervening years although the result is that the memorial has been sheltered from the weather and is in pristine condition, almost untouched by wind and rain unlike those in the vicinity, while the lettering is as crisp and clear as the day it left the stonemason’s yard.

Meanwhile, the stories of their children’s lives are slowly being pieced together. Robert, for instance, worked as an assistant baker in Bourne before enlisting in the army and serving with the Lincolnshire Regiment. Edgar was a compositor with J T Morris and his printing works in West Street but emigrated to Queensland, Australia. Frederick married a Cornish girl, Saran Cann, and went to live at Tintagel.

The last surviving sibling was their daughter, Ellen Barsby, who never married and spent her final years in a cottage near the cattle market [now Budgens car park] and died in St George’s Hospital, Stamford, in January 1961, aged 91. She is buried in the town cemetery although there in no memorial stone over her grave.

A grandson is also remembered on the war memorial in South Street where Victor Barsby’s name is recorded with those who died in the Great War of 1914-18. He was the son of their eldest boy, John Barsby, who had married Ada Hall and became a baker in West Street, and was killed in action by a bursting shell while serving as a private with the 5th Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment, during the Battle of Arras in April 1917 in which many lads from Bourne also took part. He was 19 years old and is buried in the Maroc British Cemetery at Grenay in France.

After Letitia’s death, the photograph album passed to her son William and he left it to his daughter, Edith, who passed it to her son, Chris Kettle, aged 54, director of a media company, living in Wimbledon, thus resulting in the present search to put names to faces from the past. Most have been identified but the search goes on to find out more to complete a fascinating family tree.


Thomas and Letitia Barsby and three of their children, Robert, Edgar and Ellen.