George Wright - The agricultural waggoner

George Wright – my great-grandfather.

On the 30th October 1877, 46 year old George Wright, an agricultural waggoner from Thurlaston, was working in Peckleton when he was involved in a fatal accident. An inquest was held on 1st November which recorded that George was accidentally hit by a wagon, two wheels of which then passed over him, killing him instantly.

His wife Jane (formerly Horwood) was living at The Holt, Thurlaston with her four children, John, William, George and the youngest, my grandmother Alice Mary who was not quite three years old, together with an elderly aunt Elizabeth Raynor. Jane was about six months pregnant at the time of the accident and gave birth to another daughter, Lucy Emma, in January 1878. I believe Lucy was actually known as Emma in the family and continued to live in Thurlaston. My grandma, Alice, clearly remembered the dreadful day, as she was told to be a very good little girl and sit on her stool until she was told she could move. It is not hard to imagine the devastation to the family this accident caused with the loss of the main breadwinner.

Jane was a needlewoman, so no doubt managed to make some money. She definitely passed her skills onto Alice, who when she married made all the clothes for her children, including the boys' suits! She married William Tulett, a baker, and went to live in Milford, Surrey, where my mother Eva and her brothers Frank and Charlie were born. In 1944, after a bomb dropped a bit too close to where we lived in East Barnet, Hertfordshire, Mum and I evacuated to Thurlaston to stay with Mum's cousin Ada, who may have been Emma's daughter. We weren't there long, however, because grandma suffered a stroke and we went to stay in Milford. Although my mother kept in touch with her Aunt Emma and Cousin Ada, since she died in 1982, I have lost track of any of their addresses in Thurlaston.

Barbara Owen