Clerk (manager) of the Stroudwater Company, 1854 to 1872, after working as a dyer.
Nathaniel Alfred Partridge (NAP) was born into a very well known family of dyers based at Bowbridge, and he started working with his father Nathaniel. In the 1820s, he briefly joined his cousin John William in an ill-fated venture in Yorkshire, but this led to bankruptcy and he soon returned to the family business at Bowbridge.
Then in 1854, he became Clerk of the Stroudwater Navigation company, and he and his family moved into the Company’s headquarters at Wallbridge, Stroud. He served the Company diligently for 18 years during a period of intense competition from the railways, and he lived in retirement for two years before his death in 1874.
NAP was a member of a well-known and long-lasting dynasty of mill owners and dyers of Bowbridge Mills near Stroud. The family worked the mills in the late 18th century, certainly by 1779 when they are recorded as the owners, and owned them until at least 1889. In their heyday there were at least four mills producing cloth and dyeing. John Partridge and his wife Esther (or Hester) Hopson (NAP’s grandparents) married in 1772 and had at least 7 children: John (1773), Thomas (1775), William (1776), Nathaniel (1779, Esther (1781), Joseph (1783) and Edith (1890). By 1795, the eldest son John, known as John Junior, had himself married and had a son John William. In 1802 John sold three fulling mills and a dyeworks to his sons Thomas and Nathaniel. By 1823 three of the brothers, Nathaniel (a scarlet dyer) and Joseph and John (blue dyers) made an agreement for sharing power in the mill. John appears to have taken charge of the clothmaking end of the business and by 1833 had installed steam power. He made broad superfine cloth, kerseymeres and Spanish stripes and operated an extensive dyeing business, estimating that he gave employment to 500 people. Nathaniel and Joseph continued to operate dye-houses close by.
Nathaniel (who was father to NAP) was born in Bowbridge. At this time it seems the family were non-conformists, as Nathaniel’s baptism in 1779 was registered at the Tabernacle in Rodborough , where the denomination is described as Calvanistic Methodism. In 1800 he married Elizabeth Haycraft, daughter of John Haycraft, at Southwark St Mary in Rotherhithe, where Elizabeth was living with her brother Henry Haycraft after the death of both her parents. In the banns Nathaniel is described as a bachelor of the parish and was perhaps in London gaining further experience in his profession as a dyer. Subsequently, in 1811, Henry Haycraft and his family also moved to Stroud, where he is described as a dry salter.
NAP had an older brother Henry, born in 1802, and sister, Charlotte Sybilla, in 1804. Henry is notable for having been baptised twice, first in 1802 in Lady Huntingdon’s Mount Ephraim Chapel in Tonbridge Wells, a Wesleyan Congregational chapel, and again in 1807 in a C of E ceremony in Stroud. This probably reflects the changing religious allegiance of this generation of the family. Henry is an elusive figure as he does not appear in census records. He may be the Henry Partridge who is recorded as occupying a mill owned by John Partridge Jnr in the Bisley division in Land Tax records in 1822 and 1824. NAP was born in February 1809 and baptised at the same ceremony as Alfred, the son of Henry Haycraft, in 1812. In 1837 he married Emily Harris, the daughter of George Daniel Harris of Uley at St John the Baptist Church, Gloucester, by licence. The marriage was witnessed by her brother Hetman Charles Harris, a surgeon of Middlesex, London and his wife to be, Rebecca Voysey Crozier. A London directory places Hetman Harris in Windsor Place, Middlesex, very close to the Dyer’s Almshouses and Orphanage – may this have been a link?
In 1838, NAP broke away from his father’s business and joined his cousin John William in a new venture as dyers in Horsforth, near Leeds, another centre of the woollen cloth industry. In 1841, NAP and Emily were living in the Pimlico district of Horsforth with their three year old daughter, named as Eunice S. (presumably a mistake for Elizabeth Sarah), who was born in Rodborough. NAP’s occupation is given as Dyer and he was sufficiently prosperous to employ a female servant. His mother had died and his father, now aged 68, remained in Bowbridge listed as a dyer, living in The Gunhouse, Bowbridge with NAP’s sister Charlotte. His prosperity was fragile, however, and later that year he and John William were bankrupt. This must have been a terrible shock, and NAP returned to the shelter of the family business in Bowbridge. It does not appear that John William ever returned to Bowbridge.
NAP and Emily went on to have another 5 children: by the time Emily Mary was born in May 1842 they were back in Stroud. She was followed by Alfred Robert (Apr 1843,) Kate Selina (1845), Agnes (1848) and Walter Reginald, (Sep 1850). In the electoral register for Stroud in 1846 NAP appears as owner of a freehold mill and dyehouse, presumably in conjunction with his father. In the 1851 census, they are living in the Lypiatt area of Stroud on London Road, Bowbridge. Emily, Kate, Agnes and Walter (aged 11 months) were at home and Emily’s mother and sister, Sarah and Helen Harris were visiting: Elizabeth (aged 13) was with her grandfather Nathaniel, aged 71, and Aunt Charlotte in the Gunhouse in Bowbridge. NAP’s uncle Joseph of Mount Vernon, Rodborough, also has a dyeing business at Bowbridge and was the most successful and prosperous member of the family as he employed 64 men, 17 women and 4 boys.
In 1853, the electoral register shows NAP as possessing a Freehold Mill etc and Henry Partridge is also listed as holding a freehold mill. In the Stroud Directory of 1856, NAP’s father Nathaniel is listed as a dyer (scarlet) and manufacturer of dyer’s spirits, and Joseph Partridge is listed as a dyer, both at Bowbridge. Henry is no longer listed.
In 1854, however, NAP changed direction and took up the post of Clerk of the Stroudwater Navigation Company, effectively the manager. What caused this change is not clear – perhaps Nathaniel had tired of dyeing, or difficulties in the cloth trade may have caused the family to retrench. He certainly made an effort to get the job as he canvassed shareholders who knew his family, asking them to vote for him – much to the disapproval of the current Committee members. This was evidently effective as at the General Meeting, the majority present supported the other candidate, but NAP received many more proxy votes, and he won the day.
NAP and his family moved into the Company’s headquarters adjacent to the Ship Inn at Wallbridge, and he continued as clerk for nearly 18 years until his retirement in May 1872 at the age of 63. During this time he entered just over 430 letters in the letter books of the company, which gives an idea of the work he carried out. His letters are generally legible, grammatical, correctly spelled and well-expressed, giving a good idea of his competence and attention to the job. He must have had good experience of what was needed to run a business. The number of letters entered in the books average one per fortnight, but after a Committee meeting he could write ten in a day, and may have written many more which were not regarded as sufficiently important to be entered in the letter book.
Certainly he was not as assiduous a letter-writer as his successor James Snape, but Mr Snape combined the roles of Clerk and Surveyor of the Canal. This was not the case with NAP, but the Committee evidently felt the need of such expertise as is shown by the fact that in 1864 NAP was handling applications for the post of surveyor and Mr Peyton was appointed to the position of Assistant Surveyor in June. Most of the business referred to in NAP’s letters concerns management and service of the Committee of the Stroudwater Company, collection of details of traffic and corrections to charges for carriage on the canal and penalties incurred when the Canal Company’s rules were infringed.
It is clear that throughout the period of his service, competition from the railways was an increasing concern. Initially attempts were made to encourage trade by offering reduced charges when certain quantities were carried in a specified period. Towards the end of his service, revenues were falling and so were dividends, and a blanket reduction in carriage rates was mooted. A letter written on 5th November 1869 by NAP to a Mrs S. Renard, evidently a disgruntled shareholder who suspected the Committee of extravagance, gives an idea of the position:
“ I beg leave to inform you that your Committee have sanctioned the repairs as necessary. The Canal has gone for a number of years without the renewal of lock gates which have now been deemed necessary to replace by new ones. The subscription fund to the Opposition of the Severn and Wye Railway was thought essential to introduce clauses to place the Canal upon an equality with the railway and the law expenses were incurred for the same purpose. Your Committee have bestowed much anxious thought upon the present aspect and position of your Canal. It has been deemed essential by them to retain traffic to considerably reduce the tolls. The railway system has necessitated this reduction and I am much afraid the Railway Schemes that are now afloat will demand a still further reduction. When I inform you that there is one gentleman of your Committee that represents 17 shares and others that represent a considerable number you may naturally suppose that your interests in the undertaking will be carefully, vigilantly and anxiously watched over by them.”
By 1861 NAP, now aged 52, was living in Wallbridge as clerk to the canal company. In the household are his wife Emily; their daughter Emily M aged 19: Alfred, aged 17, listed as a dyer: Kate Selina, aged 15, Agnes aged 13 and Walter R. aged 10. Emily and Kate are listed as Clerk’s daughters and Agnes and Walter as Scholars. Nathaniel (NAP’s father) was now living at Elm Cottage, Lower Lypiatt. His age is now given as 81, but he is still listed as a dyer, employing 10 – 12 men and 2 boys and living with his daughter Charlotte aged 44 and granddaughter Elisabeth aged 21. Joseph Partridge, Nathaniel’s younger brother, had died the year before. In 1864 Nathaniel, NAP’s father died, leaving under £1500 in effects. Charlotte and an accountant were his executors.
1871 found NAP still at Wallbridge as clerk to the canal company, with his wife Emily and two unmarried daughters Kate and Agnes. Walter, now aged 20 and listed as a ‘Gentleman’ was a visitor in the household of a farmer of 220 acres in Crickley Cumnor. Emily is absent from this census, as is Albert.
NAP retired from his post as Clerk to the canal company in May 1872 at the age of 63. A number of reasons could have led to this decision. At his father’s death he probably received some inheritance, making him less dependent on his earnings. His health may have deteriorated: he was to die only two years later. It may also have suited the company, in increasingly straightened times, to employ his successor W James Snape, who was qualified and willing to take on the duties of both Clerk and Surveyor. On his retirement, NAP moved to Cainscross, where he was buried on 17th July 1874. His will was proved that August by his sole executor, William Fisher of Pagan Hill, Civil Engineer. He left effects under £1000.
In 1851, seven year old Alfred was a pupil at Christ’s Hospital School in Hertford. This school was in part supported by the Livery Companies: the younger boys and all girls were housed in Hertford at the time, with the senior boys in London. Alfred’s attendance there suggests that his education was taken seriously. It is also possible that the family were in financial difficulties. Christ’s Hospital was initially founded in 1552 to relieve the poor children of London and was originally both a school and an orphanage. By this time it was purely a school, but suitable candidates were often supported by bursaries. By 1861, Alfred was a dyer, presumaby working with his grandfather Nathaniel.
The 1870s was a momentous period for Elizabeth Sarah, NAP’s eldest daughter, for so long companion to her grandfather and Aunt Charlotte: she appears to have lived in their household since her early teens. In 1870, at the age of 33, she married Dr Thomas Partridge, described as a physician, surgeon and Medical Officer of Health in the 1881 census He was a widower aged 40 and was the son of John William Partridge of Aston, who had died in 1862. The family relationship between Elizabeth and Thomas was complicated: Thomas was the grandson of NAP’s father’s eldest brother, John Junior - that is Elizabeth’s first cousin once removed. Each was at the end of a natural line of inheritance in the Partridge family. Charlotte left considerable assets (’below £4000’). Dr Thomas, whose father had died in 1862, was the natural successor of the line of the three Johns, Senior, Junior and John William. In 1871 the couple were living in Frome Cottage, Stroud. Theirs may have been a marriage of true affection, but although Elizabeth was only thirty three at the time of the marriage they had no children together. Possibly this was more a marriage of convenience, allowing them to share inherited property of the Partridge family without offending the conventions of the time. At all events they were together, first in ‘Bowbridge Mill’ (1881), ‘Bowbridge Rd’ (1891) and ‘Bowbridge House’ (1901), until Thomas’s death in 1906. Bowbridge House was one of the two large mansions owned by the family and still stands, recently as a school. The other was Mount Vernon in Rodborough, occupied by Joseph Partridge, NAP’s uncle, in 1851.
NAP’s wife Emily lived on in Cainscross, where the 1881 census records her living in Oxford Villa, Stonehouse, Cainscross with her unmarried daughters Kate Selina aged 35 and Agnes aged 33, living according to the census on ‘Dyehouse rent at Bowbridge and bank shares’. Emily died in December 1881, leaving personal effects of £142.18s.10d. Probate was granted to Agnes. Just seven months later, in West Disley, Lancashire, Kate married William Henry Cox Fisher– who had acted as her father’s executor six years before. Once again, a bachelor relative is involved – Francis Cox’s mother was Eliza Haycraft, NAP’s brother-in-law’s child. Kate and Wlliam had no children but were together until 1906 when he died. Through his career, his occupation moved from Civil Engineer and Surveyor, to Engineer and Architect to finally Architect. William’s cousin Mary, who had been living in the household of William’s father and William prior to the marriage, remained in the household and was still living with Kate and her sister-in-law Sarah Fisher in 1911. Kate died in 1920, leaving £4826. Probate was granted to Francis Alfred Chambers, who had also acted for Elizabeth and Agnes.
Kate’s marriage had taken place in West Disley, Lancashire, probably so she could be married from the household of her brother Walter. The marriage was witnessed by Walter and Eugenie Partridge. Walter doesn’t appear in the 1881 census, but his own marriage, to Eugenie Carre, a French citizen born in Paris, took place in 1883. This was a C of E ceremony – perhaps they had married previously in a Catholic ceremony in France, or perhaps the ‘Eugenie Partridge’ at Kate’s wedding was a polite fiction. They also had no children, but were still together in Liverpool in 1911. Throughout this period Walter was employed as a Chemist (Assistant).
Two children are still unaccounted for. Alfred, the elder son, is not in the 1871 census, but by 1877 he is recorded as living in Canada in Victoria, British Columbia and employed as a barman. In 1882, still in Victoria, he was the manager of a Billiard Salon and his marriage to Elizabeth Jeffrey, a widow, is recorded.
More mysterious is the situation of Emily Mary, NAP’s second child who was born in Rodborough in 1843. She is last heard of aged 19 in the 1861 census. No registration of death or burial is in the records; Emily Partridge is not an uncommon name, but there is none where the other details appear to fit. Perhaps more significantly, she does not appear as a witness to any marriage nor as concerned in any of her sibling’s wills. Perhaps she also emigrated or met with some other misfortune which led to a complete break with her family. It does not appear that NAP had any grandchildren.
A last word must be given on Alfred Chambers, the Master Dyer who was evidently a key player in the Dye works at Bowbridge once the Partridge family were no longer directly concerned in the operation, though they appear to have continued to have a financial interest. He was concerned in the probates of Elizabeth’s, Kate’s and Agnes’s wills. His father, William Clutterbuck Chambers, was the son of a farmer in Minchinhampton, and appears to have had some of the ambition and commercial acumen which may have been lacking in the third generation of the Partridge family. In 1861 at the young age of 24, he appears to have assumed charge of the major section of the dyeing business relinquished by NAP’s uncle Joseph on his death in 1860. He is described as a cloth dyer employing 31 men, 2 women and 11 boys and occupied the Gunhouse at Bowbridge, the former home of Nathaniel Partridge, NAP’s father, who had moved to the adjacent Elm Cottage. His son Francis Alfred, one of eventually ten children, was born in 1862.
The family prospered; by 1881 they were living at Elm Cottage (formerly occupied by Nathaniel) and William was a woollen dyer with 30 hands. In 1891 the whole family were living in Thrupp House, where William is described as a Yeoman farmer and the eldest son John is a farmer. Francis Alfred is now entered in the census as Alfred F., a Dyer – perhaps he preferred this to avoid confusion with his younger sister Frances. In 1893, aged 28, he married Edith Minnie Evans, a 33 year old Canadian widow with an 11 year old daughter. They now moved into The Elms, Bowbridge – possibly an improved version of Elm Cottage. In 1901, William senior is still at Thrupp House, now described as as a Dyer and Farmer, so he evidently continued his interest in the business. Alfred and Edith had two more children, Esther Doris Clutterbuck and William Phillips Clutterbuck. Evidently the family remained prosperous, as in 1901 the children had a governess and there were two other servants in the household. They were obviously close neighbours and business associates of the Partridge family, in whom the Partridge sisters had considerable confidence.
Family history from Ancestry.
Stroud mills from www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol11/pp119-132.
Yorkshire venture from British Newspaper Archive.
Canvassing for votes from Wilts & Swindon History Centre 873/206 and D1180/1/5
Stroudwater Company Clerk from www.stroudwaterhistory.org.uk.
