This time I am writing about more memories from Frank and an 1832 marriage settlement.
That’s Frank Sumsion who tells us about Senior School and the outbreak of the Second World War.
Those days were certainly interesting with the Bath Blitz in 1942, having to use Morrison shelters to protect oneself from the bombing and with every item of food and drink was rationed.
It’s all very different from today. He also tells us about starting work just after his 15th birthday, working at Combe Down Waterworks, being in Bath Civil Defence Service, a a succession of different motorbikes, working at a mushroom farm and meeting his future wife Jane.
The Settlement on the Marriage of Mr William Butler with Mrs Jane Davis. William Butler it was who, along with William Harrold built Isabella Place after Thomas Maude, 2nd Viscount Hawarden (1767 – 1807) started to sell the estate of Ralph Allen (1693 – 1764) that he had inherited from his father Cornwallis Maude, 1st Viscount Hawarden to pay his father’s debts. His mother had been Mary Allen, Lady Maude (1732 – 1775), his father’s first wife, and the niece of Ralph Allen who built Prior Park Mansion.
The marriage settlement between William Butler and Jane Davis.
A marriage settlement was very necessary in those days for a wealthy lady like Jane Davis – her assets in the settlement were £808 16s 11d which is now worth about £976,900.00. Once again things were very different from today. At the time an unmarried woman had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name but, upon marriage, a woman’s legal rights and obligations were subsumed by those of her husband. Married women did not have any rights due to the legal fiction, called coverture, that a husband and wife are one person. Once a woman married she had no claim to her property as her husband had full control and could do with it whatever suited him!
This did not start to change until The Married Women’s Property Act of 1870.
I hope you enjoy more memories from Frank and an 1832 marriage settlement.