Researching the Pledger Family

The above is an image of Strethall Church

This article is followed up by a second one published in 2007 which continues Megan’s story.

Researching my ancestors is something I had always wanted to do, but where to start was the most difficult thing, as I knew nothing about my grandparents, not even their Christian names. Once I got started, so many coincidences happened, I felt as though I was being coaxed into finding out about my ancestors. Eventually, after a lot of research, using the ERO Archive Access at Saffron Walden, I managed a great achievement in tracing my family tree all the way back to the 1600s.

My father Douglas Pledger was the youngest of a family of eight, and had lost his mother when he was just a young man in his twenties. He was away in the war in Italy at the time of her death. His father died in 1956 when I was a young girl, so I cannot recall much about him, but I do remember something that my father had mentioned before he died: that his family had originated from Strethall. From this one clue I was able to take one step at a time and, with the help of many people, put my family history together. The connections with Strethall were particularly strong. The marriage of William and Rose Pledger, my x4 great-grandparents, in 1751 was the first Pledger one to be held in village. There were 21 Pledger marriages to follow, as well as 83 christenings, with all of them related to this original couple! There were so many Pledgers in Strethall at one time, that they made up half the village population, 25 out of 50 being Pledgers, and through this increase in population a school was opened in the old rectory. Ae photograph (lent by Janet Potts), may have been taken around 1895 and probably shows the entire village population, including a lot of my ancestors, but I have no way of identifying individuals.

Finding the family tree in Strethall

In the summer of 2000, my brother John and I decided to visit Strethall and have a look around. Several of the gravestones had reference to the Pledger name but at this point they did not mean anything to us, as we knew nothing about our ancestors. We looked inside the church, noting that it had been built in the 14th century to replace a wooden building dating to about 1000 AD. John signed the visitors’ book as he has the Pledger name – this proved to be the starting point because two months after our visit, a letter arrived from June Brandon of Hitchin, who had been a Pledger before marriage. She came across the entry in the visitors’ book while searching for her roots in Strethall, where her great- grandfather and grandfather originated, while her father Thomas was born in Littlebury Green, just a mile from Strethall across open fields.

When I met June, I could immediately see some family resemblances, and we had so much in common that I felt as if I had known her for years. June had also written her own biography entitled ‘Pledgers’ Complaint’, the name given by her family to her habit of constant chatter – the amusing thing about her is that like myself she has so much to say that no one else can get a word in edgeways. I found her book fascinating as her life as a young girl was so much like my own childhood. With the help of Dr David Melford’s History of Strethall, I learnt a lot about the village of my ancestors. Later on, I discovered that the Pledger name had been first recorded in the Domesday Book.

The tree spreads its branches

How to start with sorting it all out? I decided to list all of the people with the name of Pledger from the Littlebury and Strethall Census 1841-1891 and church records from both villages. Once I had listed them all I went through the process of trying to put each family together. This was not an easy task as there were several Pledger families coming and going through the decades. My next step was to get a copy of my father’s birth certificate to find out who his father was. His name was Archibold John Pledger and his mother was Lily. I then found him in the Strethall 1881 Census at the age of two, with several siblings and their parents William and Ann – my great-grandfather. This was the lead that I was needing.

The connection between myself and June was John Pledger who married Mary Young at Strethall in 1827. They had eleven children, nine of whom were born in Strethall. The eldest child, John (B) born 1828 was June’s direct line, having married Susan Starling in 1847; and the seventh child, William born 1843 was my great-great grandfather, who married Ann Nash in 1841. I managed to find the pedigree lines of these two sons of John and Mary, but the nine daughters have been harder to trace since most of them went into service or changed their name in marriage.

My next piece of luck came when I read The History of the Perin family by Jean Dobson. In this book there is a passage about Hannah Pledger who married William Perin in 1776 in Littlebury. I managed to connect some of
Hannah’s family to my family, as a younger brother John born 1769 was my blood line. I also came across a family tree compiled by Elaine Reed, which showed her ancestor Henry was brother to my William, born 1700. After further checking I was able to go back two more generations to Thaxted with Abraham Pledger who married Mary Munchal in Thaxted in 1623.

Trees to forests!

What had been a simple family tree then grew into a forest, when I was contacted by Peter (Mickey) Pledger from Selsey, Sussex. My first conversation with Peter was quite intimidating as he was quite abrupt like a Victorian school master and I felt as though I was a small child, but as I got to know Peter I found that his bark was far worse than his bite! He was quite a gentleman, with a wry sense of humour but would not stand for any nonsense or bad manners. Peter had been researching every Pledger that he could find and tried to collate families together.

We had only known him for a few months when he became ill with cancer. As he was impressed with what I had achieved with my own large tree, Peter asked if I would take a weight off his mind and accept all of his research notes and database containing several thousand Pledgers worldwide, plus several boxes of correspondence, to carry on with his work. Two months after this meeting Peter sadly died. It has taken many months of sorting out the papers, but with all the pedigrees on my computer, I now have a forest of Pledgers and it is still growing.

Putting faces to names

Many people have lent photographs which brought my ancestors to life, for instance Janet Potts of Cheshunt, June Brandon of Hitchin and Christopher Pledger of Yorkshire all contributed, so I was able to put faces to names, not only for John and Susan, but to all but one of their eight children, and eight more of the following generation. Of these, Joseph and Elijah left Strethall in the later 1800s to seek work. All the information we had on them was that they went to Yorkshire, and one of them had married in Driffield.

In June 2002, we were on our way to Northumberland for a holiday, and decided to take the scenic route via Lincolnshire across the Humber bridge into Yorkshire. After travelling some 30 miles we came to Driffield, which was where Joseph and Alice Pledger married. We decided to stop for a break and visited the library to check the phone book for Pledgers, of which there were five. One particular address was en route to our destination so we decided to call on chance. It turned out to be Arthur Denis Pledger, a grandson of Elijah and Eliza Pledger. This couple had produced eleven children, with all of them having large families and living in the area around Filey. Later, I found Joseph Pledgers grandson, Eric – he has only one daughter so if she marries the line will end. This has happened with many of the Pledger lines.

Wartime tragedy

Of the next generation, I had only one missing photograph, Ernest. This story I am now going to write, to me makes researching family history really worth the hours of hard work! Suddenly I had a phone call from Winifred (Win) Mary Pledger, who had heard that I was researching the Pledgers. Her father turned out to be Ernest Charles Pledger, born 1881. She was aged 90, had never married, and wanted to give her niece Trenna a family tree, so she would know her roots. Win said all she knew of her father was that he had died, leaving her mother to bring up three small daughters, aged nine, five and four. I felt overwhelmed as I listened to Win talking about her father, that all she had of him was a photograph, and a precious post card which he sent to her as a small child telling her to be a good girl.

A few days later, we went to visit Rita Lofts of Saffron Walden, whose mother was Violet Pledger, the youngest grandchild of John and Susan. Rita suddenly produced an audio tape of her mother Violet and her siblings talking and singing to each other. This was amazing – now I not only had their faces , but also some of their voices!

What was more, there were some letters from Ernest to Violet, his youngest sister who was living at Strethall with her aunt Mary Ann and her grandmother Susan. He was stationed at Languard camp, Felixstowe at the time. One letter was written on 1 September 1916. He said that he was to rejoin his regiment on 16 September, but was hoping to see his wife Annie (Nance) and their three daughters. The second letter had no date but must have been written earlier, as Ernest wrote about his two brothers Stacey and William just going out to war. Unfortunately Stacey died of wounds on 22 June 1916 at Flanders. He signed the letter ‘your everlasting brother Ernest – a curse on the war!’ I found this to be very moving as the following year, on 10 October 1917, he too was killed.

One other letter was from Susan (nee Starling) to her son Charles Pledger, born 1852. The letter is not dated but must have been written around 1901 as Violet went to live with her at Strethall at the age of three. Susan mentioned the health of her granddaughter, Violet to her father Charles in her letter. She also said that she had heard from Ernest and William, and related a few stories of happenings around Strethall. Susan would have been in her late seventies at this time, and reached the grand age of 92 when she died. I have been amazed at how many precious items that one family had been able to keep safe over so many years. Just before Christmas 2002, I sent Win the family tree she wanted for her niece, together with a set of photographs and a copy of the two letters that her father had written. Win was so emotional over her father’s letters that she could not ring me the day she received her parcel. A few days later, she phoned me, absolutely overwhelmed to see her father’s letters after all these years. What makes it particularly worthwhile is to meet someone like Win, and bring such happiness to one in her senior years, with such a sad start to her younger life.

Coincidences

My Pledger research has been full of coincidences. On one of our visits to Strethall Church, we met Dr and Mrs Melford who for over 40 years have lived in the very cottage, Riders, where Pledgers had resided for as much as 100 years. I was surprised to recognise Mrs Melford as a teacher from my school days. Later I found an old school report with her comments on my history exam – in large writing she had written ‘Megan has not tried’. When I mentioned this to her, she could not believe that she had been so hard on me. A few days after this meeting, Mrs Melford sent a letter congratulating me on my history research and giving me ‘A’ for excellence!

Note

Since completing this research Megan published a large book of family history.

Growing Up In Saffron Walden During the 1950s

In May 2007 a remarkable reunion took place at Strethall Church of the Pledger family. They were brought together from all over the country by Megan Ridgewell (nee Pledger) for the launch of her 960-page book of Pledger family history. The following article is based on the final chapter of this superb volume, in which Megan recalls her childhood in post-war Saffron Walden. Her reminiscences will strike a chord with all those who grew up here in the 1950s.

My earliest memory of the 1950s is a vague recollection of moving from our first home, a tiny little cottage in School Row, Castle Street, to a brand new three-bedroom council house in Usterdale Road. My parents, Douglas and Amelia Pledger, had my two younger brothers Nigel and Frederick John as well as me, so needed a larger house. I would have been aged three at the time of our move when all our possessions were put on a horse-and-cart that clip-clopped up the hill to our new home. This was to be our parents’ home for the rest of their lives. The house seemed so large compared to our little cottage. We thought this was quite posh as we had an upstairs bathroom with a toilet, plus a toilet just outside the back door opposite the coal shed. The views out of my bedroom window across the fields towards Westley Farm I have always loved from my earliest memories until the day I moved out and married.

I had to grow up quite quickly as my parents had their fourth child, my sister, a month before my fourth birthday in 1952. I remember June 1953 quite well as it was the Coronation of our Queen Elizabeth II. Everyone celebrated by having parties. I was taken to school to a party – this was the first time my mother had ever left me, I was so scared as I was such a shy child. But how lovely when I took home my beautiful blue glass Coronation beaker that every child was given. I never did remember what happened to it, most probably one of my younger siblings broke it. Just the other day I came across one of these beakers in Reeds the antique Saffron Walden during the 1950s shop that I love to browse around, and it is now on display in my glass cabinet.

I started Castle Street School the same year as the Coronation. I remember then being very nervous and frightened of leaving my mother, but soon settled in. The Girls had a separate playground to the boys and the toilets were across the other side of the playground – I remember a girl shutting my fingers in the toilet door! Our canteen was situated in Museum Street, which was originally the infant school. Many generations of my family attended this school.

Castle Street School country dancers.

My sister Valerie showed me how to sew from a very young age, when I was chosen to be included in our country dancing group for our school class, we all made our own outfit. My favourite subjects were sewing, sport and art. My father told me many years ago that I could draw perfectly before I started school, this is something I pursued later in life.

Whilst on holiday on the Isle of Mull in 2006, my husband Gordon started chatting to a couple who parked their car beside ours, amazingly the lady turned out to be Mrs Fisher who taught me at Castle Street School over 50 years ago! She could still remember several names of children who were in my class after all those years.

I was not very old when there was a polio scare, we all had to have inoculations against this which made me feel very faint, a couple of my friends were infected and were burdened with a limp for the rest of their lives. My memories of Castle Street were good ones, although some years before it had been classed as being the roughest street in Saffron Walden and no outsider would dare walk down the street on their own.

The fish and chip shop was run by the Jeffrey family, this was situated just across the road from the school, us children were only allowed a bag of chips, no fish as our mothers could not afford it. Next door to this was Parish’s, the little grocery shop where we children would go and buy a penny packet of crisps. Between these two shops was Museum Court and at the back was a row of cottages – this was where my father and mother were born, although eight years apart. Just a little further down from the school was Limmers, our little sweet shop where we would buy our penny sweets.

I loved going into Startups, the toy shop, when I was a child – this was situated next to the Town Hall. And what about the ‘Bombed-out shop’, as we called it – does anyone remember this? It was opposite Millers the bakers in Cross Street. I suppose it was so named as they must have sold Saffron Walden during the 1950s items damaged by war!

I also remember going to see the opening of the Anglo-American Playing Fields. This was in remembrance of the American servicemen who were in this area during the Second World War. We would spend all our summer holidays around this area playing on the swings and enjoying ourselves. What lovely days they were, our mother never saw much of us during these summer months.

Fry’s Gardens.

One of my favourite places to visit was the Gibson Gardens in Castle Street – we knew them as Fry’s Gardens. I used to watch the black-and-white version of The Secret Garden on the television and was fascinated by it, even though it was not in colour. Here I could believe there were fairies, it was just like a secret garden to me. There was even a wishing well where we would throw a penny to try and make our wishes come true. You were so innocent in those days. The flowers were so beautiful all the year round. Sadly in recent years they were neglected and vandalized, but in 2003 the gardens were granted a large amount to get them back to how they originally were. At first the locals were up in arms as the ancient trees and bushes were culled to the ground but now, four years later, they are as beautiful as they were when I was a young girl with my fantasies. Another favourite was the Maze on the Common where we had lots of fun following the trail.

Maze on the Common.

Our home was situated next to a cornfield, this was where we also spent a lot of time playing amongst the bales of straw in the summer months. We would walk for miles around the hedgerows gathering blackberries for a pie, and also go fishing for sticklebacks at Buckenhoe pond. We brought them home in a jam-jar with string tied round for a handle, I think most of the water slopped out before we got home. You can see beautiful views across the fields of St Mary’s Church and Westley Farm, where my brother Frederick (John) would spend most of his time.

Swimming baths in East Street.

Sometimes on a Saturday morning we would go roller-skating in the Corn Exchange (before it became the library), then perhaps go swimming in the afternoon at the old baths in East Street. People who had no bathroom could also go here to bathe in the bathrooms supplied. Then we would have a walk around the shops – Woolworth’s was one of our favourite places to have a look around, at that time in the early 60s it used to be absolutely packed with people. Saturday afternoons we would go to the Cinema, either The Plaza which was in Station Road and The Walden Cinema which was situated at the top of the High Street. Lesley and I loved to see Hayley Mills films at that time.

Walden Cinema.

We would only dress up in our best clothes for special occasions such as our carnival day, or if the fair was in town. Sunday was a family day, we would all have a bath and put on our Sunday-best clothes, then would either go for a picnic in the park or the playing field to watch the cricket. Often we would go through Audley End Park and sit amongst the row of trees, here you could see the back of Audley End Mansion. Other Sundays we would go for a long walk and end up at the pub at Little Walden, Sewards End or go to Littlebury Green where my father’s uncle Ben lived, our parents would have a beer and us a fizzy drink. Being the eldest I would dread the long walk back home as my legs used to ache. The younger ones had a ride on the pram or dad’s shoulders.

Christmas was the only time of the year we had presents, as my parents could not afford birthday presents. Although we only had one main present plus a stocking with a tin of toffees, an apple and orange in, it was such a wonderful time for us. The neighbourhood community was so different when we were young, as all the children would play together in the street, our mothers would always be popping around each others’ houses for a chat. I cannot complain about our childhood as we had some wonderful times.

Sadly Megan pased away in August 2022