An Era Comes to an End

The silver business flourished, not least it is said due to the sharp business sense of Hetty Jane Owen, who counterbalanced the people management skills of her more affable husband, Charles Albert Eldridge. On February 10th, 1920, Hetty Jane gave birth to their second child, Harold Wilfred Eldridge. The family were now doing well enough to send Harold to The City of London School in Blackfriars. Harold was able also to acquire a wealth of practical skills and knowledge from his visits to the silver firm before eventually qualifying as a doctor. In tune perhaps with the times, Olwen received no such special attention, perhaps on the presumption that a suitable marriage was all that was required. It never happened.

When war broke out again in 1939, Maria Rosetta Bradley was a widow again. The ‘Bearded Bugger’ had died in 1929, but Maria Rosetta was still fully on hand to impart her words of wisdom and remind the family of their Welsh origins, of which she herself possessed not a single ascertainable gene.

Harold joined the Merchant Navy and became a ship’s doctor. He travelled the world, as part of the World War Two supply chain, attending to the ailments of sailors, as he went. This was as good a way as any other of surviving the war, and he was definitely just as safe sailing the seas of the Atlantic as he would have been had he stayed in the East End areas frequented by his ancestors. From the 7th May, 1940 until 11th May 1941, the East End of London came under a sustained campaign of bombing that was to change the face of the area for ever.

Bombs in The East End during the 1940-1941 Blitz. From: http://www.bombsight.org/#14/51.5185/-0.0479

Although the bombing was fiercest around the Docklands, since the Germans were intent on disrupting if not destroying the British supply chain, nowhere was entirely safe, and bombs fell further north, including along the Southgate Road:

From: http://www.bombsight.org/, Southgate Road running north through the centre of the map from De Beauvoir Town.

Maria Rosetta Bradley lived through all of this before finally dying in Edmonton in 1945, aged eighty-seven. She was buried in Highgate cemetery, along with her memories and recollections of a world departed.

St George in the East Church, where Harriett Wombwell was baptized, suffered a direct hit. The Ratcliff Road along which George Wombwell junior had hauled Peto the elephant, The Commercial Road, where his uncle had his original menagerie headquarters, Bromley-by Bow and St. Leonards where the Bradleys had their bakeries, and all those streets which the loyal Jane traversed carrying Henry Bradley’s love letters to Maria Robinson – in each and almost every location, the bombs rained from the sky. For nine consecutive days at one point fires raged through the Docklands where the Robinsons had plied their trade. Regardless of the human suffering and casualties, a whole heritage had been fatally scarred. Just north of the Barbican, Jewin Chapel was hit. David Samuel Owen, Hetty Jane’s second cousin hardly waited for the dust to settle before conducting an open-air wedding in the midst of ruins. A campaign to save the rebuilt chapel as its congregations continue to dwindle still continues to this day.

Jewin Chapel in 1957, still awaiting restoration. It was eventually rebuilt and opened again in 1960. Copied from: https://twitter.com/michellehdow