This page is about grandparents Edward and Mary Wragg.
Edward Wragg
Grandad Edward was born on 4th October 1900 in New Street Clay Cross to Ernest Wragg and Emma Wragg (nee Davis). New Street was renamed King Street after the coronation of King George V in 1911. This was because the street was deemed to be the best decorated of any in Clay Cross.
He had two sisters, Emily and Edna and two brothers Ernest and John. The 1911 census also shows there were three other children who had died.
Grandad’s father Ernest was a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ (now Community of Christ). He remembers going with his father on Sundays to light the fires at church before everybody arrived.
He also told of another incident that happened when he was a child.
‘There was an accident at school, when a teacher hit out at a boy next to me. He dodged the teacher’s hand causing him to miss his intended target, the said boy, and the nail of one of the teacher’s fingers caught the pupil of my eye. From that time on, for quite a number of years, I had trouble with matter forming on my eye lashes which then fell off. This trouble re-occurred regularly over a period of six to seven years. In 1912, my father took me to church on the Wednesday evening and there I received administration from Brother Greenwood (administration is where an Elder prays for someone who is ill). My eye got better and I had no more trouble with it from that day to this day.’
This is an extract from some early memories he wrote down for his son John. You can read them here – Edward’s Jottings
He moved to Sutton-in-Ashfield in 1922, initially living with the Rallings family in Fern Street. He was made a deacon in the Reorganized Church during the same year and would later become an Elder in the church.
Mary Wragg (nee Holmes)
Grandma Mary was born on 22nd June 1896 in New Street Clay Cross to John Holmes and Elizabeth Holmes (nee Cowlishaw). She had two brothers Simon and Harry and five sisters Fanny, Emily, Effie, Elsie and Florence. They lived next door to the Wraggs.
They moved to Redcliffe Street, Sutton-in-Ashfield in 1905 and then to Sandlant House, Glen Street, Sutton. Sandlant House was a single storey home where the bedrooms were constructed from a converted railway carriage. It was named after Grandma Mary’s grandmother, Emily Sandlant.
In the 1911 census at the age of 14, she is shown as working from home as a packer in the ‘Salt and Blue Trade’. ‘Blue’ was a product that was used to whiten clothes when they were washed. It doesn’t say who she was doing the packing for.
Their Married Life
Edward and Mary married on 13th Mar 1923 and lived with Mary’s father John Holmes in Sandlant House. They later moved to 23 Marlborough Road, Kirkby-in-Ashfield sometime in the 1930s, where he worked as a coal miner at Kirkby Colliery. They had three children.
But then Mary died on 20th Mar 1943, aged just 46. Her death certificate says she died of mitral regurgitation, which is a heart condition where there is leakage of blood backward through the mitral valve each time the left ventricle contracts.
Edward’s Later Life
Grandad married again to Stella Simms on 26th Mar 1949. Stella was from Gloucester and they decided to move to Gloucester. They lived at Yew Tree Cottage, Portway, Upton St Leonards, Gloucester. He first worked on the Railways and after retiring, he helped out part time at a local farm.
His main hobby was growing vegetables and all his cottage garden was full of them. When he came to visit us in Sutton, he would always arrive with a bag full of fruit and vegetables which he had grown in his garden. He would always say, why grow flowers, you can’t eat them.
Stella died on 10th Sep 1980, after which, Grandad decided to move back to Sutton in 1981, living in York Street. He died on 30th Dec 1989 of pneumonia and prostate cancer.