Blower Family - Somerset, Porsea, Dunmow, Essex

Our story begins with Jacob Blower, born in 1790 in Batheaston, Somerset.

We think his father was James Blower,  born 15 May 1757.

James married Anne Kite in 1784 in Walcot, Somerset, when he was 27. He was 33 at the time of 

Jacob's birth.

Jacob grew up healthily, and joined the marines when he was 15, in Oxford.

We have yet to find out when and where he served, but by 1816, at age 26, he was ready to marry.

His bride was 22-year-old Elizabeth Hendy from Wymering in Hampshire, and they were married in St Mary's, Portsea.

Six children were born over the next thirteen years: Mary-Ann (1817), John (1819), Elizabeth (1821), Henry (1823), Amelia (1826) and  Jane (1829).

Sadly, Jacob died in 1829 at just 39 years old, leaving children aged between 12 and 1 years old.

Henry, the middle child, was six when his father died. He went on to marry Sarah Stevens in the same church as his parents, St Mary's, Portsea in 1851.

Sarah came from Westbourne is Sussex , just along the coast from Portsmouth, and was seven years younger than Henry, being just 20 years old.

St Mary's, Portsea

Henry stayed in the Royal Navy, and at age 38 the 1861 census records him on the island of Candia in the Mediterranean at Suda Bay aboard the ship Agamemnon (a 1,431ton wooden clipper built for the India trade). Sarah is at 69 Grosvenor St, Portsea with two young children (Elizabeth 1855) and Henry (1858). She is listed as the wife of a seaman, and shares the hose with another with of a Royal Navy seaman and her four children.

Henry must come home regularly, or left the Navy soon afterwards, because the next census shows another four children in the family, George (1863), John (1865), Frederick (1867) and Ellen (1870).

Of course, we do not know the date Henry left the Royal Navy, as he is listed as a Greengrocer in 1871. They have moved down the road from 69 to 35 Grosvenor Street, Portsea.

They stay at number 35 and have two more children, Ernest (1873) and Flora (1877).

By 1891 Henry has retired from the greengrocer trade, and they have moved again, this time to  7 Bailey Road, Portsea. They supplement his RN pension by taking in a young lodger and his wife.
Sarah died in 1878, aged 69, having borne 8 children. Henry followed her three years later.

George Blower (23 July 1863) grew up with his family in Portsea. By the time he was 17, in the 1881 census, he was apprenticed to a house painter.
However, he didn't stay in Hampshire. When he was 25 he married Caroline Louisa Webb (23) from Great Dunmow in Essex and moved to the same village.
George retrained as a plumber, and started the family business.

George and Caroline with their four oldest boys.

Caroline bore ten children in the cottage in Rosemary Lane, from 1890 to 1908.

George William (1890)
Ernest John 'John' (1891)
Charles Frederick 'Fred' (1892)
Thomas Henry 'Harry' (1893)
Caroline Elizabeth 'Cis' (1895)
Robert Stephen 'Bob' (1896)
Ellen Sarah 'Nell' (1898)
Macdonald 'Don' (1900)
Hedley Richard (1903)
Olive Rose (1908)

Caroline lived in the house until her death aged 67 in 1933. George lived for another twenty years, dying in Bishops Stortford in 1953.

The cottage in Rosemary Lane as it is today.

All the chidren led adventurous lives. Cis, Olive and Don travelled to Canada and back, while Cis stayed there to marry. Bob emigrated to Tasmania, where his descendents still live.

Robert 'Bob' Blower

Don and Hedley carried on the family business, as Blower Bros, and diversified into the building trade. Many of the streets in Rayleigh, Essex were built by the brothers, including Don's family home in Picton Close.

Nell's Wedding 1921

Don married late in life. His bride, Agnes Degenhardt was the same age, and they had met at her home in Hockley while he was carrying out plumbing work for her parents.

1 Spa Road, Hockley, run by Agnes. Christine was born here before the family moved to elsewhere in Hockly and finally to Rayleigh.

The couple had three children, Christine, Geoffrey and Philip.