Introduction
In the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century, most men in Wickhamford were employed in agriculture or horticulture. They would have been farm labourers or market gardeners. The emphasis on market gardening increased after about 1900. These men and their families lived in the village in rented cottages or lived locally and travelled to Wickhamford on a daily basis to work. Many of the men spent most of their working lives in the village but others moved around the area going to live and work in various places. The family of Edwin Bearcroft, discussed below, only appeared in village records for the 1901 Census. Their story is one of moving from place to place in South Worcestershire from the 1890s to the 1940s.
Bearcroft family in Wickhamford
At the time of the 1901 Census, the Bearcroft family were living in Wickhamford, at what is today No 1 Longdon Hill, a house built after 1891. A description of the house appears in the Valuation Survey of 1913. It is a semi-detached, three-bedroom property, within a quarter of an acre plot of land. Edwin Bearcroft was then 43 years of age and working as a market gardener and his wife, Emma, was 35. He had been born in Evesham, a son of George and Sarah Bearcroft and he was already working as an agricultural labourer, aged 14, in 1871, when the family lived in Mill Street, Evesham. Edwin and Emma had three children by 1901; Rosa, aged 11 and born in Evesham, Edwin (9), born in Offenham and George (5) born in Bengeworth, so the family had been moving around the area since Edwin and Emma married. Edwin Bearcroft had married Emma Kyte in Pershore in 1889. They were both still living at the time of the 1939 Register and his date of birth was given there as 9th November 1857 and Emma’s as 14th September, but the year is unclear in the on-line document. Given her age in 1901, it would have been 1865. At the time of their marriage, he would have been 32 and she 24, older than most people married at that time.
Although all three children were of school age, there is no record of them attending Badsey School. It is possible that they attended school in Evesham, as this would have been a direct walk into town from Longdon Hill. Bengeworth School was located in Kings Road, Evesham. This could have been reached as a 30-minute walk from Longdon Hill, approximately the same time as it would have taken to walk to Badsey School. It is uncertain how long the Bearcroft family lived in the Longdon Hill house, but it could have been as long as 15 years or as short as a couple of years. Why the family moved on is only speculative. Edwin may have found a better job elsewhere or he may have had difficulty paying his rent and been forced to moved out?
Earlier family lives
In 1881, George and Sarah Bearcroft, with their son, Edwin, who was an unmarried garden labourer, aged 24, were living a ‘Lodging House’ at 42 Mill Street, Evesham. At the 1891 Census, Edwin, now married, was living in Main Street, Offenham with wife Emma and their baby daughter, ‘Rosa Eleanor’, aged 1. He was a market gardener’s labourer. While living in Offenham they had their first son, Edwin George, in 1891. Before the family were recorded in Wickhamford in 1901, they had lived in Bengeworth, where their younger son was born in 1896. His full name was George Victor Bearcroft.
Post-Wickhamford time and the Great War
In 1911, the family were recorded in the Census living in Cropthorne where Edwin was still a market gardener. His wife, Emma, and their two sons, now aged 19 and 15, were employed ‘Assisting in mkt garden’. The daughter Rosa, had married, in Bromsgrove in 1908. At the outbreak of the Great War in September 1914, Edwin Thomas Bearcroft would have been ca 24 years old and his younger brother, George Victor ca 18 years old. If neither had volunteered for the armed services they would have been conscripted later in the War. A market gardener’s work was considered of national importance and men going before Military Tribunals were often given temporary or permanent exemption from military service. No military service records have been found for either Edwin Thomas or George Victor Bearcroft (see footnotes). On checking the Newspaper Archives for this period, no reference has been found for either son, either in the Army or at Military Tribunals. It is possible that both were physically unfit for military service.
Inter-War lives
For the 1921 Census, the Bearcroft family were living at Rushwick Cottage, Bedwardine, Worcester. Edwin was recorded as an agricultural labourer, as was his son Edwin Thomas, and George Victor was a ploughman. Both sons were unmarried, at 29 and 25, and they, and their father, were all employed by S. W. Smedley, Fruit and Potato Merchant. Emma was listed as having Home Duties. George Victor was recorded as being born in Wickhamford, which was not the case. There is no record of him being Baptised in Wickhamford or Badsey. This error may be an indication that the family move to Wickhamford took place at the time of his birth in 1895. It is also possible that the Bearcrofts were the first occupants of the newly built Longdon Hill house.
The next event concerning the family is the marriage of George Victor Bearcroft to Amy Gertrude Turner, in Pershore in mid-1924. She had been born in Kemerton, in 1894. No children have been found for this couple and tragedy struck in mid-1926 when George Victor Bearcroft died in the Worcester district, aged 30. His Death Certificate records that he lived at Lower Ferry Lane, Callow End, Upton-upon-Severn and died on 1th August 1926 of a cerebellar (brain) tumour (see footnotes). The family had already been saddened in early 1924, when his brother, Edwin Thomas Bearcroft, had died aged 32. His Death Certificate recorded that he was an agricultural labourer of Droitwich and that he died of epilepsy in a Mental Hospital in Powick. If this was a long-term condition from which he suffered, it would explain why there is no evidence of his doing military service.
Edwin and Emma Bearcroft lived on and, by 1939, at the start of the Second World War, were living in a cottage in Crown East, Martley. By this time, she was 74 and he was 81, but he was still listed as a ‘Market Gardener Own Account’. Emma died soon afterwards, in early 1940, but Edwin lived until later in the War, dying in the Bromsgrove district in mid-1944, aged 87.
Tom Locke – May 2026
Footnotes:
- There is one record for the Victory Medal and British War Medal awarded to a George Bearcroft who served in the Worcestershire and Gloucestershire Regiments, but this would not appear to be for George Victor Bearcroft, as full names were generally used in these records.
- The handwriting on the original Death Certificate makes George Victor Bearcroft’s surname appear to be Blarcroft and this is the spelling that appears on the GRO website.